Saving Zim
by dib07
Summary: This latest cover art has been so cutely done by dear RissyNicole! All previous art avatar artist names will be changed...eventually lol. 'When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.'
1. The Call

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi all. This is my latest Invader Zim novel. Yes. Novel. Because it's pretty big. Not as big as some, but still quite substantial.

A part of me doesn't want to upload this, and a part of me does. So here's what I'll do:

It's been a long time since I've submitted anything on here, and writing does take up a lot of my time. I do enjoy it, but it does help if there are other people enjoying it too. There's little use uploading this if no one reads it. So I shall **continue** this story on a 'reviews per chapter basis.' This is going to hold true for all of my new IZ novels; **you must leave a review if you want it continued**. I do **reply** to **all ** reviews, even the guest reviews in the forthcoming chapters. And I listen to every voice. So I hate to leave this story dead in the water if there is no interest. Or I may just delete it entirely because I'll just assume no one likes it. So please leave feedback and let me know.

Anyway, this novel is really mature. There is blood. There is swearing. It's for the adults who love Invader Zim. My stories aren't for children. So here goes. And don't be surprised if this whole story gets deleted. Because I'm still not sure I even want it uploaded on here. So enjoy it while you can.

* * *

 _'Don't kid yourself_

 _And don't fool yourself_

 _This love's too good to last_

 _And I'm too old to dream.'_

 _Blackout – Muse_

 _x_

 _'There's part of me you'll never know_

 _The only thing I'll never show.'_

 _Endlessly – Muse_

* * *

 **CHAPTER 1: The Call**

Dib was out on the balcony, filling his time with his usual habitual reveries. The stars never failed to fascinate him, or make him feel woefully insignificant. To Zim, the stars did not endow him with the same sense of mystic awe. To him, they were as mundane as traffic was to Dib. But that never sullied the human's allure. Whenever he could, and if it was a clear, cloudless night with the moon being particularly bright, he'd go and stand on his balcony, smoking a cigarette or drinking a can of beer. Zim had once laughed, saying that human pollution blotted out the full orchestra of the planets and stars. And Dib believed him. Only once had he ridden in Zim's voot, and he had seen the stars for what they truly were, unhindered and unmolested by Earth's pollution. His eyes had ached from looking at so many celestial balls of light.

Now he was quite happy to admire them from his home as his glass lenses reflected their fiery white light.

His home was situated on a quiet rural town where not much happened. The traffic was light, and his neighbours couldn't even be seen over the brow of the hill. On one side of him was a great forest. And opposite him was a cornfield. He liked it here. And he liked the serenity the place possessed. No more city life for him. Of course, the main town was only five miles away, and he went there regularly for business and pleasure. Zim's culdersack was exactly three miles behind him, so in a way they were now living closer.

In the parlour the TV was comfortably playing away, its blue light enveloping the empty sofa in front of it. The room was in a bit of a mess. Countless UFO magazines were haphazardly strewn all over the coffee table – a table littered with old liquid stains. Old popcorn kernels had been distributed over the rug, and his hanging shelves were dusty and cluttered with memorabilia, with the occasional cobweb making its debut in the parlour room corners.

Living as a fulltime bachelor had made him indolent and lazy with his own housekeeping. Yes, he was astute and proper when it came to his job. He carried professionalism around with him as if he had coined the term, but when it came to private living, he stopped caring as soon as he entered the threshold to his own domain. Perhaps it was a man thing. Perhaps it was a symptom of loneliness.

Either way, he didn't have a measure of care.

As he was inching a fresh cigarette out of its packaging, the TV screen suddenly flickered violently, and the voices became a distorted mess of noise. Dib spun round; sure it was on the fritz. Yet how could it be? He'd just bought the wide-screen TV a year ago! It wasn't even past its warranty!

As he was still bemusing this, the lights flickered simultaneously and then died, filling the whole house with an ill blackness. The TV keeled over as well, leaving Dib in darkness. Hastily he rummaged for the lighter he usually kept in his left jacket pocket. With nervous fingers, he found it and pulled it out. He flipped open the lid and the small orange flame bloomed upwards like a flower. It doused his face in a lambent glow.

His eyes tried to scan the dark for foul play. The house seemed to glare silently back at him, as hushed as a tomb.

It was not unusual for rural areas to suffer blackouts. But, being Dib, he always had reservations when suspicious things started happening to him.

The flicking lighter flame could not reach very far. He trod on ahead carefully in his little light bubble, step by step, trying to remember where all the furniture was situated so that he wouldn't stumble and fall into anything.

Was there an intruder? Or a simple fault in his electricity? The fuse box was down in his basement. He never liked going down there. It was the last place left to renovate, and it would be the most expensive. For it was damp, and quite big for what it was. He only ever stored alcohol down there, and useless cardboard boxes for storing away old CDs and other junk from when he was a kid.

As usual however, when something untoward happened, his first culprit was always THAT alien.

"Zim?" He called impatiently. "Zim, are you in here? If you are, this is NOT funny!"

He tried to get angry. Truth was, he was shivering in his pants and it was hard to convey one's voice when he was pretty shook up. He hated being blinded, and hated feeling vulnerable, especially in his own house. Zim didn't usually strike this close to home, but he did know where Dib lived, and not everything the alien did was coherent or plausible in any way.

"Zim!" He yelled it this time, growing more impatient and frightened. "Come out this second or I'm calling the cops!"

Suddenly, as if by magic, the lights blared back to life, filling Dib's vision in white. He had to throw a hand up in front of his face to allay the torturously bright intensity. As if in unison, the TV sprung back to life too, and a female reporter was back on Channel 5, highlighting the recent rise in food prices. All was well again, just as before, as if nothing foreboding had ever transpired.

Dib peered around his own parlour nervously, the lighter still flickering away. Awkwardly, anxiously, Dib jabbed a cigarette between his lips and lit the tip before putting the lighter away. "Zim?" He called again, this time with far less anger. "Zim? You there?"

There was not a sound.

He inhaled on his cigarette, and the intoxicating fumes helped his nerves relax.

Outside, he could distinctly hear car alarms going off, and not just one or two either, but at least half a dozen.

Still, he roamed forwards, thinking about grabbing a knife from the kitchen drawer.

He floated from place to place, tense and ready for a fight. Each time he came to a room and swung the door open, ready to take a swing, he'd confront an empty room. All the windows were shut, and his back and front doors were still locked. Of course, windows and doors had never posed much of a problem to the alien invader, but still.

He was about to decide that the whole thing had been nothing but a simple, innocent blackout, when, in the parlour, the phone began to ring. He inwardly groaned.

 _Probably sales people ringing up, wanting my details for something I don't need._

He checked his wristwatch. It was late. No one he knew would ring at this time. Sometimes his dad rang late, on occasion, when he was excited about some new invention that he couldn't hold in any longer.

He ignored the first few rings, relying on the answering machine to follow through and have the recipient leave a recorded message. But the recipient left no message. And in the space of ten seconds it started ringing again. Dib hardly ignored someone who was trying to get through to him twice. So, with a hard sigh, he walked on over with the limp cigarette dangling from his lips and picked it up.

"Yeah? Hello? Membrane residence."

"Urm... yes, hello?" The voice sounded tinny, and very familiar. "Urm... is this Dib?" The caller sounded like he was struggling with his words.

Dib frowned. Was this a prank caller? "Yes. It is he. Who is this?"

"It's Gir!"

"Gir? Zim's robot dog thingy?" Now Dib _was_ surprised. It was rare, doubly rare for Gir to have anything to do with him, let alone coherently make a phone call to his house. He still had his doubts, and suspected a trap.

"Urm... you need to come over. My Master spilled all his sauce everywhere. I'm worried. Someone could slip on it."

"Sauce? Jesus Gir! Is that all?" Sauce? This was ridiculous! Why would he care? "Just clean it up!"

"I... I CAN'T!" Now Gir was beginning to sound frustrated, if robots could even get frustrated. "It keeps coming out!"

"What does?"

"The sauce!"

"Look, is Zim there? Can I talk to him?" What Gir had to say was usually drivel anyway. Talking to him was like trying to reason with a mad man. It just gave Dib a headache.

"Yes..." Then: "No..."

"Gir, just clean it up. I have better things to do."

"No! Wait!"

And Dib hung up. Jesus! Talk about wasting his time!

He walked back out through his open door to the balcony, enjoying his cigarette until it had turned into a stub. Then he flicked it over the balcony.

Sauce.

What a load of baloney.

But Gir's tone did worry him. It had a hue of panic to it.

 _I can't keep going over there EVERY time Gir rings me up about something stupid._

His mind toyed with the idea of going over, just to see if one of Zim's plans had combusted, perhaps showering sauce or ignition fuel all over the place. It would come as no surprise. Zim rushed through his plans as if his biological clock was on the brink, and his final products would end up as mighty big failures.

 _The trip would take me just fifteen minutes. Less if I take the shortcut._

 _Can I be bothered though?_

He looked at the phone back in the parlour. Soft unease had started in his heart.

Then, before he knew it, his body was on the move, and he was grabbing his coat and his car keys.

 _ **~ A little earlier ~**_

"Stupid, stupid machinery!" He was down on his PAK, which he hated. And though his place was kept as sterile as possible from unhealthy obsession, the floor still proved to be less savoury than any other surface, and he had to lie on it. Earth presented a lot of dust, and though his base was well ventilated and sealed tight against the airborne spores of humanity and all they produced, dust still made its way down into the catacombs of his nest.

Using his receptor grapplers, he sought the problem in the dark beneath his console and set about to fixing it. The wires were sheathed in rubbery ploxum, an Irken material much like rubber, yet thicker, more resilient, and stronger. He slit some of it away to get at the coils within. One of the wires wasn't connecting properly. Must have been a fault when the machinery was installed, or some recent power surge had caused something to burn up.

He squinted one fuchsia eye at the problem, even though he had no trouble seeing in the dark in the cavernous confines below his console.

The faulty wire in question was easy to pinpoint. The silvery trim was blackened and slightly out of shape amongst the others. Zim cut away the damaged section with careful precision and let the piece fall onto his uniform before he carefully slipped in a new piece of wire after cutting it to fit. Then he carefully backed up, sliding along the floor on his PAK. It was a bad habit to practise, one that would surely cause Irken elites to frown upon.

He coasted back into the light and rolled over onto his side. Folding up his knees from under him, he tried to stand. His knees ached, and his back hurt from straining so long under the console in an awkward position.

Grabbing the edge of the console for support, he levered himself back up, feeling the pressure ease from his joints.

"Computer!" He barked, "Re-establish connection and run the drives!"

He was pretty sure the bodge-job had fixed the problem. He wasn't a qualified Irken engineer, but he was able to make and fix whatever he could, sometimes out of very limited resources. It was not wise to rely entirely on machines, machines that could break down and leave him in the dark.

Invaders had to be resourceful, after all.

"Re-establishing link." Droned the computer.

Zim stood, staring at the screen as Irken jargon rolled upwards in streams. His antennae, one crooked, the other perfectly smooth, lay across the flat of his head as he tried to relax. But his body remained stiff and rigid, a posture he had held almost all of his life without even making a conscious effort to realize he was doing it.

Gir, his deranged S.I.R robot unit, plodded into the room holding an armful of supermarket products. "I got the shampoo! Let's turn the taps on!"

Zim, who had become a reluctant expert at understanding Gir's mangled speeches, answered with bitter promptness: "Does it look like I need a bath, Gir? Now just go and watch TV or something. I have work to do!" He could have rebuked him in Irken. He hadn't spoken in his native tongue for over twelve years, and it bothered him. He did not want his own language to go rusty and forgotten. Already in his head he thought in English, and though he hated this unplanned arrangement, he couldn't help himself. Without hearing another fellow Irken speak, he was slowly losing touch with his own kind.

 _How did it come to this?_

He jerked himself from this dangerous reverie. Irkens had never been taught or trained to reflect or daydream! It was a waste of time! "Computer! Download a diagnostic report!"

Suddenly everything went down. The computer hummed in a low drone as all power drained from its processors, and the screen reeled into a very alarming black. As Zim pondered this, panic freshly knocking on his door, the lights went out.

Everything went out.

Even Zim's PAK.

The power outage fazed Zim only a little, the lack of lights even less, for he could see and feel his way in the dark perfectly. But it was the failure in his PAK that frightened him the most. Usually brimming with pink light, the metal dome on his back also dimmed and then faded to grey. This made his heart falter.

"Gir! Help me! The power is out! I need the facility back online!"

He could not have caused such a massive blackout, surely? His repairs had been minor! He had been nowhere near the main power circuits!

"Gir!" He cried when his first shout was not reciprocated.

He could see Gir in the dark, not much further from where he had originally been standing before the power failure. But as he turned to Zim, his attention decidedly elsewhere, the Irken elite saw that Gir's eyes were red.

"Gir! Stop staring and help your master! I need you to go back to the power core and see if it's still online! We have ten minutes, Gir!" He himself, ever the hard worker, was already on the next task. Mentally employing the mechanism that held his PAK in place inside his spine, he lodged it free so that it disengaged from his body. This telekinesis was rare for Irkens, and some possessed higher abilities than others. Zim's telekinesis was weak at best, but it was just strong enough to manually manipulate his PAK to and from his body whereas some Irkens like Tak had a far higher mental capacity for psychic management.

Before the PAK could drop to the floor, he grabbed it and brought it over to his console to begin diagnostics. Luckily the laser gun had been charged this morning, or he may not have been able to use it at all.

But Gir had other things on his mind. He approached Zim, quite naturally, as if he was about to impart a line of dialogue. Zim was not paying any attention. In his left claw was a laser gun. He was busy lifting off the top lid of the PAK to get at its circuitry. "Yes, Gir? I gave you an order. THIS is important! NOW GO!"

If he could go back in time, he wished he had paid better attention.

Gir flexed his metal fingers together to form a blade and then he thrust it deep into Zim's side as quick as a bullet. The bladed fingers punctured flesh with ease and before Zim even realized, Gir had yanked his hand back out again, allowing blood to drench the floor beneath. More blood spurted down Zim's uniform, and all over his boots. The Irken just stood there, too horrified even to scream. Then the lights flickered back on, the main computer hummed into life and the PAK lit up. Even Gir's bright red eyes turned back to their charming cyan colour.

"Master? Master? What you do? You got icky sauce all over yous!"

Zim swallowed, and felt his breath run back down his throat where his little lungs started hitching out wheezes. He staggered backward, and pressed a gloved claw to his side. Hot, iridescent fluid kept glugging out with each beat of his heart.

Before pain and numbing shock could outrace him, he quickly turned round and mentally clawed for his PAK beneath the clamour of his own panic. He was rewarded by its comforting presence as it lifted upward, its flat inner disk facing his spine. Tubes extended from its base like twin tongues and once again these interconnected with the tubes from his spine that protruded outwards to greet it. Once whole again, the PAK sunk deep into his nervous system and started sending out electric signals to his body to begin biological repair. Even so, Zim, cold and hazy with blood loss, squatted where he was, both hands pressed to his wound as blood oozed out between his claws.

Gir stood by him, unmoving, and giddy with concern. "Master! Did you hurt yourself? Should I get help? I know you like pancakes. That'll make you feel better!"

Zim couldn't believe it. He was so pain-induced, and so compressed with shock, that he had hardly given Gir much thought. The S.I.R unit's act of untoward aggression had to be a mistake! A miscalculation! Gir had _never_ done anything of the like before, except for that one day when Zim tried to keep him permanently locked to Duty Mode. But that was many, many years ago.

"Gir." His words were slurred, his brain in a haze of absolute pain. His PAK was busy filling his chemistry with plain blockers, and it was making him tired and disorientated. To a human, they would be feeling pretty drunk at this point. "Do you recall the last five minutes? Activate your memory banks."

Gir thought for a moment. This idle posturing was more suited to something with sentient qualities than robotic.

Zim watched, still squatting on the floor. It was much too painful yet to sit, and much too painful to flatten himself to the ground. He wasn't sure how deep Gir had managed to go in. Was his spooch in jeopardy? Or was it just a flesh wound? His PAK was burning with activity as it hastened to still the blood loss, arrest the pain, and secure the site from infection. But it would take longer for the actual wound to close. First it had to coagulate. And that could take a few minutes.

"Nope. Sorry. Nothing there." The robot concluded at last.

Zim took a moment to breathe out. It felt like he had a thousand stingy nettles all lodged in his bleeding side. Hot blood still caressed his fingers. He was pretty sure he'd lose consciousness. The world was starting to fade in and out, much like one of the human movies he had watched on occasion. And even Gir, once crystal clear, was now turning into a blurry outline.

"Could... c-could you just... m-maybe..." He felt his heart stagger and lurch as if the very blood it was trying to pump was now nothing but air. The whole base around him was now transforming into a dark swathe of grey. Was it another blackout? Or was it he who was blacking out?

"Master?" Gir whinnied like a puppy. "Master? Master, open your eyes! Don't be sad! I'm... I'm sorry!"

It was the last thing he heard. In order to save energy to protect its host, the PAK had put him to sleep.

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 **A/N:** Yup. That might be it. Like I said, I don't think I'll leave this story on here for long. We shall see. Anyway, for those of you who did like it, please comment and let me know. Your reviews are appreciated! Every single one! Drabble, send me a line, discuss whatever you like! Many, many thanks! :)


	2. Human Intervention

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I don't know how to express my gratitude enough, I really, really don't. Thank you so, so much for all your support and giving me the courage to submit this to you guys and gals. And I am delighted to know that a lot of you readers are both USA and UK residents! Gosh, I feel really overwhelmed - I was NOT expecting such a positive response. As soon as I saw 5 reviews I got delighted, and then BOOM I got 9! So yeah, I think this little story is going to stay on here. If it wasn't for you kind reviewers, I may have lost the nerve. So special thanks to; oliviikate, Piratemonkies64, Invader Johnny, cara9001, Sin Hogar, that-quirky0kid, Barely Existent, ShayL92, and Guest.

And please, please review! This is the only way I can connect with you, the readers, otherise you are invisable to me! I want to know who your favourite characters are and why, and I'd love to know your views! You keep me going! You want more chapters? Just ask, and they are yours! :)

Guest: Thank you! Hopefully the outcome will surprise you! I am an author that breaks the cliché and twists things round. Strap yourself in!

that-quirky0kid: You are incredible! Thank you so much! I hope this latest installment will be as exciting as the first, and just as detailed. :)

* * *

 **CHAPTER 2: Human Intervention**

" _That'll teach you, you stupid little child! NEVER mock an Irken soldier!"_

Dib's head swirled with fragments of the past that came and went like an autumn wind. He and Zim weren't exactly enemies anymore, and though Dib wanted to construct some sort of friendship like he was trying to build a rickety shack on a cliff face, he wasn't sure if Zim would ever just relax. Dib knew why the alien was slowing down but he wasn't quite sure if Zim knew. He was pretty sure the Irken DID know, and neither of them wanted to see that ugly truth that grew more real by the day.

Dib, hunching his shoulders up against the cold winter wind, hurried up Zim's front yard that was littered with the usual gnomes and misshapen birds. He rolled up his trench coat sleeve to feel the scar there that he had gotten that day at the gym when he was fifteen. Zim had been strong back then, and dangerous too. They had almost got into big trouble that day.

" _Okay class. Time for some Physical Education."_

 _There was a groan from most of the children combined. No one was particularly enthused with P.E. If it wasn't cold outside, it was freezing, even within the smelly gymnasium hall that had cobwebs and always stank of old sweat and musty clothes._

 _The teacher, Mr. Hedge, was giving them all exercise tips before they went out onto the playing field. They were all lined up against the wall in their skimpy P.E shorts and shirts. From the look on Zim's face, Dib could tell that he detested the routine as well as he did, especially when he had to dress down to reveal more of himself than he liked. And his short stature was extra evident when he had to line up with all the other taller children. The kids purposely bumped into him, calling him names like 'Frankenstein,' and making faces at him. Dib often watched as the teasing went on, wondering if Zim would reach him limit and explode outward with his PAK foray: exposing himself in the process. But he never did. He took the bullying rather well; in fact sometimes it only fed his anger and hatred, not exactly good when he could later lay it all on Dib._

 _After running around a miserable playing field for an hour, the class returned to the changing rooms to shower and get back into their old clothes. He waited for Zim to come to the decision of removing his shirt, and when he did, Dib bounced into the fray, snatched the shirt off him, and went running down the hall, screaming: "Zim's an alien! Look at how green he is!"_

 _Half naked and enraged, Zim took off after him. "Stink beast! Release that shirt or I'll cut you into a thousand tiny, TINY pieces!"_

 _Dib yelled from over his shoulder. "What's the matter, Zim? Too slow without your mechanical struts? Or are you just plain lazy? I know, I know! It's because you're SHORT! Isn't that right?"_

 _The flight was as fun as his actual battles, if not better. The adrenaline soaked into him like he had just injected himself with ecstasy and he felt so alive! It was these moments that he remembered the most, rather than the aftermaths. Except for this day._

 _Eventually, as he knew he would, Dib ran out of places to run to. Zim seemed to never run out of steam. The boy ended up outside again, behind an old building the adults were using to teach Religious Studies. Dib, caught in a dead-end, was sweaty and panting, the P.E lesson having worn him out. But not Zim. He came round the corner slowly like some psychopathic killer in the movies with not a bead of sweat on him. His chest wasn't even moving strenuously. How could someone be so... physically fit? And he was so small! Already Dib had longer legs, and as a result had a longer stride from his recent growth spurt. Had Zim cheated somehow?_

 _In his hands he still held onto the alien's slightly grass-stained shirt._

 _In the face of anxiety, he levelled his gaze and confronted his demon, hoping that his challenge wouldn't go unheard, and that the other children would come running._

" _What's wrong, space monster? Worried everyone will see how disgustingly green you are all over?"_

 _Had he not read Zim correctly? Had he overstepped some secret, invisible line? For, instead of slipping into the usual charade of trading-insults, Zim struck out with a PAK leg, something he rarely did in case of being seen by other humans. Its mordant point, sharp as a needle, sunk into Dib's right arm without prelude. The pain started as something small, and barely registered. Then the agony seemed to explode all over him._

 _Dib screamed out and dropped the shirt. Zim yanked out his spider leg, causing Dib's arm to run red._

" _That'll teach you, you stupid little child! NEVER mock an Irken soldier!"_

 _Dib had just stared down at the increasing outspread of red sweeping down his arm until it was dripping off his fingers and elbow. His clothes were doing little to soak it up._

" _Dib...stink?"_

Dib pulled the sleeve back down his arm, covering up the star-shaped scar as he stood at Zim's purple door. Even though he had been in great pain, he had found it mildly amusing to see the shame fill Zim's face. And though the alien uttered not a word as he backed away, the apology was in his eyes.

Dib was taken to the nurse, and then the hospital. Fifteen stitches he had, and he hadn't said a word about Zim and how he got the life-threatening injury. He could have got him in some pretty serious shit, and it might even have led to his exposure. But he hadn't, making up some lame excuse that he'd fallen on a piece of glass.

Why had he done it?

He wasn't sure at the time. Probably because he didn't want the battles to end so abruptly. He had the power, the power he'd been wanting since he was eleven. Maybe it was because it wasn't a very fitting end to their charades? Maybe it was because he had seen that look of guilt: that unsaid apology in Zim's eyes?

The scar was forever the reminder of what he could have done, and what he chose not to do.

 _I suppose the thought of Zim rotting away in some lab was always my one fear too._

Dib hated coming to his house regardless. They had a meeting ground that was neutral. And coming to his enemy's home turf was never easy. It was a psychological battle, sometimes before the real one began.

Despite his age, Zim sometimes made him feel like a little boy again.

Harvesting his courage, he raised his fist and knocked three times on the alien's door, hoping against hope that no one would answer.

XXX

He drifted. And drifted.

He was back under that console again, straining to modulate the wires while the base crashed and burned around him. Someone was calling his name, only he would not answer, could not answer! He had to do this! He had to fix it! It was his mistake: his blunder that had to be amended, lest it do anymore damage. But the call got harder to ignore. Soon an individual word could be heard over the hissing and roaring of the flames. _'Zim! Zim!'_

Nearly there! Just a little more!

Before he knew it he was plunging through a twirling dark abyss full of red eyes.

He screamed. He had been so close! Just a little more and he would have succeeded!

Then the terrible dark weakened, and the calls grew more real, more solid. Eyes he didn't even know he had been holding closed, tried to open. He was inundated with diaphanous light and something large and fuzzy stood before his blurred vision. "Zim? Zim! Oh thank god! It's me!"

Zim's brain, stupid with sleep, tried to process this new situation. He went to open his eyes wider, and the world started to focus a little more. The blurred figure in full view was none other than Dib, and this alarmed him deeply. Why was he was sleepy and drowsy, with the enemy right above him? Had he been captured at last? Was he restrained? His defences removed? Panic began to hammer at his internal walls.

His tiny, slit nostrils tried to pick up smells, and all he could smell was the heavy pungency of man. His broken and smooth antennae twitched a little at the tick-tock of a nearby clock, and the vibrations of the February winds outside, accompanied by the flurry of a car as it rushed on by.

Where were the scalpels? The drills? The stink of chemicals and synthetic gloves?

"Easy, Zim. It's okay. You're safe."

These words had little meaning to him. Why was Dib even saying these words? Had something happened?

Where was Gir? Why did could he not hear the pulse of his computers?

The Irken soldier struggled to sit up. His brain was still sluggish and overspent somehow, as if he had just downed a whole barrel of human alcohol in less than two minutes.

"D-D-Diib... w-wherz..."

The voice that came out of his throat was not his own. It was croaky and frail. When one arm tried to lift himself up, his elbow slipped and he went down again. But the short landing he had was a soft one. He gathered that he was resting on a plush array of pillows.

"Take it easy, Zim. You're still out of it. You must have had one heck of an accident."

 _Accident?_

The word did not correlate with him. He hadn't had his last accident in months. Besides, such mishaps usually were well-contained, and his computer mopped them up with perfunctory ease. Dib liked to think that he, an Irken elite, was accident-prone. But he begged to differ.

The world and its details seemed to grow second by second. Dib's profile grew sharper before his very eyes until he could see the outline of Dib's glasses on his prim little nose, and his dark swathe of ebony hair. He then looked down, and saw blankets cupping his body. He was slow to recognise the room, but when he did, a part of him tried to relaxed. He was at Dib's place. He wasn't in a lab. And he was lying on Dib's couch. And the pillows supported his PAK considerably, allowing him to rest easy on his back, a position he rarely used.

"You're at my place. I took you here." The Dib looked stupidly concerned. It made the blemishes under his eyes look larger from behind his glasses.

With some strength returning, his haze of sleep pushed slightly out of the way, Zim suddenly sat up, his heart leaping against his little ribs. When Dib approached him, hands open to try and soothe him; Zim revealed his teeth and hissed balefully. "Stay b-back! Stay! Don't come n-n-ner me!"

"Easy there, I'm not here to hurt you." Dib spread his fingers on his palms, inciting surrender.

Zim sparked in alarm when he felt a tremendous pain in his side. He jerked down the blankets to reveal a naked torso. And on that torso were layers and layers of gauze that were secured around his belly; a belly that looked swollen. On his left side, under his ribs was a damp green stain where the blood had been seeping through.

"Zim! It's okay! Will you calm down?"

"I'm naked!" He cried back, his voice croakier than ever. His ability to shout had been disabled. "Wherz my uniform? Why 'en't I at home? In m-my base? Wherz Gir?"

"If I tell you, will you calm down? I put my neck out for you, you know!" Dib said, sounding firm but not unkind.

Zim's antennae hitched forwards in earnest, and then they drew back in agitated fear. He pulled the blankets up to his chest, hissing in soreness from his wound. "Then stop staring 'en tell me!"

"Okay." Dib took a breath and sighed. "Just don't kill me, all right? Unlike you, I don't lie. Anyways, about two hours ago, Gir called me. Said some nonsense about sauce. I wasn't interested. Thought it was just another one of his pranks. But I went over, thinking you'd had _another_ accident or something."

"I don't have accidents!" Zim claimed angrily.

"Sure, sure. Anyway, I went right up to your door, and Gir answered. I followed him in, and I found you on the floor, covered in blood."

Zim leaned against the backrest of the couch, his eyes wide and staring. His side screamed at him to lie back down again, but he refused, frightened of looking vulnerable, frightened of Dib's next step. Frightened of the unknown.

"F-Floor?" He said, gulping. His mouth and throat were dry.

"Yeah. Thought you were dead, in all honesty. Kinda scared me. So I wrapped you up in my coat, sat you on my lap and drove you to my place. Gir's still at your base, keeping it safe. I didn't want him in the way." Dib paused then, letting it all sink in. Then he asked, "So, what happened? What gave you that very specific injury?"

Zim curled up his toes at the memory. "My uniform?"

"In the washing machine, going round and round. It was saturated in blood, Zim! You couldn't possibly expect to wear it in such a state?"

Zim tried to piece together the information. Dib didn't look like he was lying. His face was pretty relaxed, pretty open. "Why'd you do it?" He asked curtly. "Why'd you help me, pig meat?"

Dib shrugged. "Honestly? No such moral dilemma even occurred to me at that moment. Come on, Zim. We've known each other now for some twenty years. Don't you think that should account for something?"

"I think you're up to something."

"If I was I would have done it by now, while you were unconscious. So tell me, what happened? You're good at avoiding the issue, Zim. I think I know you better than you realize."

Zim looked away. He was done with the conversation.

It was easier to hate than it was to trust, and believe.

"I fell down some stairs." He blurted without making eye contact. He went to bring his knees up to his chest when a huge tug of pain told him that was a bad idea.

"You don't have any stairs." Dib said patiently.

"I DO!" He tried to yell, but his voice only came out as a rusty squeak. "I can't believe you took me from my base!" He hissed, trying to sound angry when his voice just kept crumbling into hoarse croaks. "And you touched me! Ripped off my military uniform! I smell like you! It's disgusting! My base? You could have destroyed it!"

Dib smiled sadly for him. "You were so cooperative when you were asleep, Zim. But just to remind you, I've sorta just saved your life. You owe me, little green thing."

Zim spat at this. "I don't need you or your smelly help! My PAK takes care of everything!"

"Sure it does." Dib replied just to tease him. Truth was, he was still a little perplexed and haunted by the night's events. Green blood still soiled the front of his shirt, and some of it had soaked through to his skin. He hadn't had time to change since taking Zim home. He still remembered getting into the car, and tucking Zim onto his lap while he grabbed the steering wheel. Zim had been wrapped up in his coat, and still the blood dribbled out and onto Dib's pants and car seat. He had pretty much driven like the devil down those shy three miles to get him home, thinking that even then, he'd arrive too late.

Zim gave Dib an annoyed look, then kicked back the blankets with his good leg and turned to shimmy off the couch. Dib patiently drew closer to catch him in case he should fall. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. Your wound hasn't been stitched up, and you'll only make the bleeding worse! You need to lie down and wait for your body to heal!"

"You'd be surprised at our superior healing rate! Not that a dirty monkey like you would ever understand! Now out of the way! And bring me my uniform at once!"

"I told you, it's in the wash!"

Zim more or less fell down the couch and landed painfully on his rump on the carpet. He let loose a loud hiss of pain, so much so that his thin tongue darted out between his teeth like a snake's.

"Do you ever listen?" Dib approached him so sternly that Zim paled under his towering shadow. Then the human hooked his hands under Zim's armpits and lifted him back onto the couch whereupon he re-covered him with the blankets. With uncommon gentleness, he pushed him back down onto the pillows. By this time the fire in Zim's side had spread, causing his chest and leg to ache miserably. So this time he barely resisted when he felt Dib's hands guiding him down to rest.

"This is stupid!" The little invader coughed in shrill anger. "I'm lying on a filthy couch! In your filthy house! You're going to do something to me! I just know it! The fucking FBI are on their way! I swear on the Tallest!"

"I'm making you some tea. You can drink tea. I've seen you have it before." He started moving away, and suddenly Zim didn't want him to go. He could not fathom why he felt like this. Probably because he knew he was the closest to death he had ever come in a very long while and in a strange fit of madness he didn't want to be alone. An invader's calling was to be comfortable alone, no matter what happened. His military indoctrination had prepared him for all eventualities. But all the training in the known universe had little power over natural instinct.

"D-Dib?"

Dib halted in the doorway, and turned to him expectantly. His face was carefully blank of expression.

Zim baulked against his sudden desires, hating this carousel of emotion. "Just... just get my stinken' uniform you useless ape!"

"You've upgraded me from monkey to ape? I feel privileged." And he left the room.

Zim sunk back down, the pain causing him to shiver even though he did in fact feel warm. He turned his head slightly so that he could discern the parlour room window. It was very dark outside, and he wasn't sure how long he had been out for. Hours? Maybe even a day? His antennae picked up the sounds of the Dib moving about in the kitchen, and every now and then the clink of porcelain and the thump of cupboard doors closing. While his mind was free to roam, his thoughts turned a dark path, and he remembered the way Gir had looked at him while he was drilling his hand deep into his flesh. Without his powerful Irken computer, he had no way to be sure how bad the internal damage was, but with this amount of blood still trying to pour out of him, he had a feeling Gir had gone through his spooch as well. The PAK was whirring away like a washing machine, working hard to repair the damage. The PAK was usually much faster at repairing him than this, which left him feeling a little worried.

Dib presently returned carrying a plastic tray. On it were two steaming mugs of tea, and between them was a plate piled high with ginger biscuits.

He settled the tray on the coffee table after shoving back the UFO magazines to make space.

"Luckily Gir saved you too. If he hadn't have called, I think you'd be pretty dead, Zim. You'd better thank him." Dib said mildly.

Zim wasn't sure what to say to this. If it wasn't for the robot, none of this would have happened. So he kept quiet. Dib waited for an answer, and looked bewildered what he didn't get one. Zim was rarely quiet. In fact, his constant need for attention was often overwhelming.

Dib got up and closed the curtains. He didn't need anyone peering in at this late hour and seeing his alien.

Then the phone rang.

Zim literally jerked back up again, and then dived under his blanket like a child hiding from the bogey man.

"It's okay! Probably just Gir checking up on you." Dib closed his hand over the phone, picked it up and answered without further ado. "Yeah? Dib Membrane here."

There was silence for a beat, and then Zim heard the soft tinkle of Dib's patented laughter. He relaxed a little as curiosity took over. Warily he lowered his frontal-blanket-defence and peered up at Dib who was busy talking on the phone. He paced as he spoke. "Yeah, dad. I know. I experienced it too. No, everything's okay. It all just turned on by itself. Didn't even need to find my fuse box. It did scare me a little." There was a brief pause, and he could see Dib's eyes wondering as he listened to the conversation on the other end of the line. Zim more or less sat like a rigid statue, the antennae erect on his head like aerial transceivers. Then Dib shook his head and chuckled again, and just for a moment all worry dropped from his face, making him look ten years younger. "It's okay, dad. Yeah. You too. Bye now." He hung up and looked over at his latest guest. "That was my dad. It's fine. I didn't tell him anything."

"What did he want?"

"Oh? Nothing. He was just telling me that the whole of America pretty much had a blackout. Apparently there was an EMP blast at my dad's lab. Experimental of course, but it wasn't shielded properly, and it downed pretty much all electrical equipment."

Zim frowned, causing his eyes to crease up a little. "EM...P?"

"Yeah. It stands for electro magnetic pulse. My whole house went on the fritz for like, five minutes. I thought you were playing a joke on me or something."

This did not sit well with Zim. If what Dib was saying was true, then his base had been equally affected by this 'EMP.' No wonder his entire base had melted into standby. Even his PAK had not been spared from this human activity. "Will it happen again, pig smelly?"

"No, I don't think so. After all, it cripples us. Everything we use is pretty much electrical." He suddenly looked at Zim in a panic, realizing he had just said too much. But Zim looked so afraid that he doubted he was thinking about global domination right now. He kind of got the gist that something like this had happened to the proud Irken as well, and that might explain that awful wound in his side. After all, a nation-wide blackout didn't happen every day, and Zim turning up with a massive whole under his ribs didn't happen every day either. But maybe he was just clutching at straws. Maybe the two events weren't related at all.

Either way, why wouldn't Zim just tell him what had happened? Unless it was to do with some secret plot to wipe out mankind?

"Here." Dib picked up a mug and offered it to Zim. "Drink it while it's hot. I've put two teaspoons of sugar in there."

Zim struggled to sit up, but he took the mug after giving him a meek 'thank you.' He cradled the drink using both his claws, and sipped tentatively at the hot liquid. At once it dampened his dry throat, and the incredible heat helped him feel warm and cosy. However, after each sip, his spooch gurgled in discomfort. To Dib's untrained ear, these gurgles sounded a lot like upset stomach rumblings.

"You're going to sleep here tonight Zim. And first thing tomorrow morning, I promise I will drive you back home. How does that sound?"

Zim perked his smooth antenna at him like he was raising an eyebrow. "I'm still trying to destroy Earth, you know. Perhaps you are more stupid than you look."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever." He drank down his tea in mere minutes, and then grabbed a biscuit. "I'm calling it a night, Zim. It's three in the morning. There are biscuits if you're hungry. But I'm going to bed. And no funny stuff while I'm gone. I mean it."

"I'm in no mood for fun." He said, taking the phrase literally.

Dib just shook his head at him.

He left, leaving the main parlour room light on. Zim sat, nestled in his blankets, feeling his spooch twist and turn as it tried to digest the liquids he had recently taken. He listened to Dib's footsteps. First he heard him go into the kitchen to so some clearing up, then heard him tread upstairs, and for awhile Zim listened to him open some drawers, turn the faucets on in the upstairs bathroom, and then later all was quiet. Zim tried to sleep. The smells he kept sniffing were nauseous. Everything stank of the Dib. And everything was dirty. There were old crumbs on the rug below, and the couch smelt distinctly of cigarette smoke. Dust clung to the coffee table, and old beer stains clung here and there on the floor beyond the rug. Humans lived like savages. They even ate like savages.

He did not like the silence. Occasionally a car would flash by outside, dispelling the dull calm. And the motion of the clock on the mantle was more irritation than comfort. In his base, deep in his honeycomb, the computers were always humming, and the machinery and tubing had their own music. He could listen to the harmony of his paraphernalia wherever he was, and sleep beneath the warm, hissing vents, tight and cuddled in a far corner where he knew he was safe.

Lying on this couch in an open parlour did not make him feel safe.

Even so, to further put him at paradoxical odds, he was suddenly afraid to go back home, and to face his little robot child.

* * *

 **A/N:** Well, there you go as promised! I do realize that updating mid-week is a little strange, but I work weekends, and struggle to find the time to update on a Saturday or Sunday and the only time I have off is Tuesday/Wednesday. So if you want more, please give me a little nudge and you'll have it. The story is after all pretty much done on my computer and the ending is almost in the making. But thank you so much. It's been a long time since I've communicated with the IZ fandom and it's great. Well, hopefully I'll talk to you all again soon! And please do review! I am eager to know what YOU think!


	3. Problems Surmounting

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Here I was, thinking this story wasn't all that good and the response has been AMAZING. You have made me so happy! So thank you all those who have reviewed and who are enjoying this. So far I have replied to everyone in the reviews, I don't think I've left anyone out. What else can I say? I was NEVER expecting my story to get this noticed, so yeah. I'm staggered. Damn Zim. People must like you. I think they want you ta live. Well. Fudge. XD Hahahaha. The joke is on me I guess. XD

I've written chapter 13 today and man it was insane! XDXDXDXDXD

Well, here we GO!

 **Guest (G.S):** Hope you keep being thrilled! Here's the next installment!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 3: Problems Surmounting**

He stood over the sink in front of the mirror, scrubbing his hands using the bathroom cloth because he had no brushes or anything that could effectively scrub out the green mess more easily.

 _He's in my house. In my lounge. Bleeding like a stuck-pig._

 _Jesus._

 _He fell down some stairs. What a liar. He doesn't even pretend to make a better story. His pride is killing him._

 _I saw him naked too. Due to the whole-blood episode I kinda forgot to see what he had downstairs. Stupid of me! For years I've been wanting to know! And I had the perfect chance! And I FORGOT!_

A small part of him was glad he had not looked, had not known. That way his view of Zim would forever remain dignified.

Dib turned on the faucet and watched old, green blood swish down in a flash of hot water. He wanted to be rid of it. Not because it disgusted him, but because it left a bitter aftertaste of mortality in his mouth. Death was always there, that revolting second layer beneath all of life. He never really suspected that he could lose Zim just as fast as any other. The wire trap many years ago had taught him that much.

With a squeak of the tap, he turned the faucet off, dried his hands and went into his bedroom. Then he closed the door and locked it from the inside by running home a single bolt. Admittedly he was nervous. He knew Zim now, and knew he was no longer the threat he used to be, but instinctively he was anxious. Since that day he had stolen Zim's P.E shirt and then setting that disastrous wire trap not long after when he was still a kid, he had come to fear the Irken's PAK more than he feared the alien who carried it.

He dressed down to his boxers and slipped in under the cold bedcovers, craving a cigarette even though he never smoked in the bedroom. He opened his nightstand drawer and fished around past the box of cigarettes for his gun. It was a Walter p.9, a useful handgun that he had bought when he had turned of age. He had never once used it, and dreaded the day when it was demanded of him to pull the trigger.

He was pretty sure Irkens were vulnerable to bullets as they were to wires.

As terrible as it would be for Zim to purposely break in, and effectively menace Dib to use it, he very much doubted the alien would even leave the couch. That wound was grievous, and had still been dripping through the gauze as if Zim was leaking rapturous water. But Dib always took the initiative, and rarely left little to chance.

He thought about slipping the gun under the pillow, and then decided to sit propped up in bed with it in his hands. The safety remained on, but even so, just holding it made him uncomfortable.

 _Shame I didn't think about installing any CCTV in my lounge, or anywhere downstairs. I guess I'm not that prepared after all. I won't know what he's up to until the morning._

With his little lamp left on, he facing the locked door, staring at it, or occasionally at the window across from him as the moon drifted through the silvery dark sky.

 _What if he needs me? What if he's gonna die?_

 _No. I already know he's old. This 'accident' of his doesn't make a damn difference. It just makes it... quicker. Easier. For the both of us._

Dib remained posted on his bed, cold fingers clutching the gun. Time moved on, indifferent to his vigil. He must have slept because he woke up to find the gun still in his hands and the sunlight streaming in through the window. The birds were warbling out their tunes as cars rushed down the road in the foreground. Dib looked to the door.

It was still closed.

Still locked.

He opened it, curiously afraid of what he'd find down below.

Quickly Dib changed into his spare clothes and creaked down the stairs, the gun stashed in the waistband of his pants. "Zim?" He called quietly. "Don't jump round any corners."

He was surprised to hear a faint reply coming from the lounge.

Zim had remained on the couch. This time he was sitting up, and leaning slightly, his antennae arched forwards as if to hear him better. Blankets were huddled around him as he tried to cover up the naked parts of himself. "Dib stink. Don't go back on your promise. If you so much as..."

"I'm not. Honest." He noticed the fresh bloody stains on the sofa and frowned at the sight, but didn't comment. Zim looked pretty angry, his patience as brittle as ice. He doubted his alien had slept a wink. IF he even did need sleep.

 **xxx**

"Well, here you are."

Dib parked up along the sidewalk and applied the handbrake. Directly beside them was the little Irken's house. It stood with its usual solemn air with the ghastly lawn gnomes staring off into space as they bordered the pristine garden path.

Zim, sitting in the front passenger seat on a cushion to boost his height, looked shyly out the side window at his base. He was so small that his feet dangled off the lip of the seat, and he couldn't even look over the dashboard to view the world from the windshield.

The entire experience with the Dib had been a long, unwelcoming affair.

Dib seemed to take it all in his stride, which Zim found to be downright unnerving. Since when did the sole defender of the Earth treat him with such civility? Surely there was something amiss? Something he had overlooked? He judged this to be in Dib's favour somehow, and that the human would later use whatever information he had gleaned against him. They had known each other now for just a little over twenty years, and much had changed between them. Somewhere along the way of growing up, Dib had eventually lost interest in Zim, and had instead gone after jobs, girlfriends, and was then busy house-hunting. As Zim fell down the agenda list, he began to realise why.

He had stopped trying to take over the Earth.

He himself hadn't even realized this. Not until that day when he faced the computer and asked for a mission report. It told him in its banal tone that he had not reported to the Tallest in five years, and had not made a significant advance in his personal mission for a decade.

Even his status report read: SUSPENDED as if the computer had somehow moderated his actions from afar and had sent these little notifications to his leaders.

It had made him draw away from the console in horror, and he struggled to remember what he had been doing that had been so important for the last decade of his life on Earth.

"Aren't you getting out, Zim?"

Dib turned to him, one hand resting on the leather grip of the steering wheel. A glint of mellowed sunlight caught the left lens of his prescription glasses.

Zim, feeling uncomfortable under his scrutiny, gripped the door handle and pulled it outwards. The car door clicked and opened.

Releasing the seatbelt from his shoulder, he gingerly stepped out onto the gravel of the asphalt road. His injured side was stiff and feverish, but he was able to move around. He was back in his old uniform. It smelt strongly of human chemical agents they used to wash things with, but he was pleased it was at least blood-free. All that remained was a raggedy hole in his side where he had been wounded. Now there was only gauze showing through that gap in his uniform. And Dib had done well to get all the stains out.

"Zim? Fudgekin?" Dib called when he still hesitated by the car. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"I am perfectly fine, Earth smeet!" He rebuked with a harrowing growl. Even though Dib was a full grown man, Zim often demoted him through insults he used to call him when he had been but a boy. Old habits die hard, even for an Irken. "But just because you sheltered me for one night does not make us friends. And thanks to you my uniform now smells of lilac and rosebuds! It's disgusting!" And with that, he slammed the car door shut and marched around the front of the car to his garden path. Dib shook his head and released the handbrake.

"Aliens." He muttered. Then he was driving off, back home.

Zim stood at the door, watching him leave. He knew he really should hurry and get inside. He was after all without his useful disguise, and anybody would see his antennae and fuchsia eyes. But he didn't move until Dib's car had disappeared over the brow of the hill. Only then did he confront the door in his path.

He could hear the main TV blazing out cartoons even through the door. It made him hesitate as cool wind seemed to blow through him. Quickly checking his rear to make sure no humans were up to spy on him on this early hour, he gathered his failing courage and tapped on the door.

He could not be afraid!

Would not be afraid!

This was HIS base!

HIS mission!

He could not hide from HIS robot! What happened had been a nasty accident. A bit of reprogramming and Gir would be as good as new!

What exactly had happened, Zim was not sure. But he could fix it.

As the new sunshine pressed down on his PAK, he heard the door unlock from within.

He tried to prepare himself for what he'd see, and felt his nerves tighten up all the more.

The door creaked open and Zim actually stepped back, one hand over his tummy as he anticipated another assault. Gir threw himself at him before he could prepare for any kind of defence and he felt a desperate, panicked yell bubbling up from within. But then Gir was hugging him, his cyan eyes wide with glee. "Oh Master! Master! I love you! I missed you so BAD!"

"All right! Enough! Let me get inside my own house Gir, before someone sees!"

The robot barely gave him room to move, so he more or less struggled up the porch steps and into the lounge, shutting the door behind him from the aid of one of his elongated spider appendages. Now back in his own private chambers, he wanted to relax. But the tight cords within him refused to loosen. Gir was nuzzling him like a child nuzzling a father who had returned from a long absence. Zim didn't know what to do or say. It was hard to believe that just last night Gir had stabbed him so viciously. Maybe Gir simply hadn't realized what he was doing, and hadn't understood the consequences. After all, Gir's brain was very limited, for his thinking process was very different to that of a sentient being. Maybe now Gir understood, and would not be doing it again.

Zim patted him weakly on the top of his metal head. "I missed you too, Gir. Just be a little more careful next time when you urm... play. Irkens are notorious bleeders. Say. How about I make you some waffles?"

"WAFFLES!" And Gir hugged him more tightly before then letting go to dance merrily about the room like some excited toddler. Zim watched him, a little relieved. He had been expecting Gir's eyes to flash red, but there was nothing at all to suggest that anything was wayward about the robot. And here he had been, worrying for nothing.

Gir was like his old self.

Except there was something different. Zim approached him, inbuilt fear keeping him four steps from Gir all the time unless the robot crossed the boundary himself. "Where on Irk is the rest of your hand?"

Gir stopped dancing and looked down at his left hand as if he himself had only just realized that part of him was missing. Sure enough his little thumb was gone. The rest of his hand was fine. Almost guiltily, Gir peered upward at his master and did a little shrug. "I dunno."

Zim rolled his eyes. Each time however Gir went to approach him, he backpedalled to maintain a respectable gap between them. "I don't have spare S.I.R unit appendages on standby, you know. Ah well. It's the least of my problems anyway."

He strolled into the kitchen, hands behind his back as he began to unwind. The TV blared away, showing some cartoon about kittens with super powers.

"Was you at a party?" Gir asked. After his giddy little spell of dancing like a maniac, he returned to his Master's side as Zim turned to the cooker. He grabbed a pan and poured waffle mixture onto its surface.

"No, Gir. I was at that Dib's place. Usually I'd yell at you for allowing that pig monkey anywhere near my home, but well, I suppose you did _sort_ of save my life. Just don't do that again. I can't trust him. For all I know, he's stolen something, or implanted some spy camera into my base."

"Ooh. You're sad." The robot exclaimed readily.

"No, Gir. I'm just... glad you're okay." He turned up the heat on the stove and the pancake mixture started to sizzle.

"You're making pancakes." Gir pointed out.

Zim grumbled. He had trouble telling the difference between waffles and pancakes. "Oh well. Just eat it. I have work to do."

"Aww." The robot whinnied. "But you always work. You should dance! Like McDuck!"

Zim muttered some incomprehensible response in Irken. He added butter to the mixture, something he did very carefully, lest it splash and cause him any skin burns. Then he flipped it over once with the spachelor and turned down the heat. He wasn't quite sure why he was doing this. Really it should have been the other way round, with Gir catering to his needs as a way of an apology. Zim wasn't sure how it had got turned around. He supposed that doing things helped keep his mind diverted from his little injury-problem.

He neatly removed the pancake from the frying pan and coasted it into an awaiting plate where he then drizzled it in maple syrup and sugar, both of which he enjoyed himself. Then he passed it to Gir who had a big grin on his metallic face.

"There. Now leave me in peace for an hour. And keep the TV volume down this time! I can't afford to have neighbours complaining of the noise you make!"

"Lemons!" Gir guffawed as he literally drank down the pancake. Maple syrup splashed all up the robot's face. Zim grimaced in disgust.

He did not stay.

He made it to the toilet and sunk down into its diabolical depths. The little elevator took him down deeper and deeper, until comfortable warmth from the temperature below filled him with sleepy serenity. This was his place, his domain. Nothing else on Earth, or perhaps even in the known universe made him feel safer. Here, he was cocooned by his own aegis of technology. It was his nest, his hive. Out there, among humans, even among the stars, he did not feel as safe, or as welcomed as he did feel here.

He stepped out of the elevator on one of his lowest floors and started marching over to the main computer console. He soon came across a dark, dry puddle of green blood. It made him pause dramatically, one clawed hand rushing to his lips. This was where Dib must have come down to inspect him, and then had hauled him back to the surface.

"Computer!" He yelled.

"Yes?" The computer replied. Its voice boomed through the warm tunnel from seemingly everywhere at once.

"Playback the last eleven hours! Did that human weasel filch anything from my database, or the base itself?"

A large pink monitor wormed its way out of a wall of tubing and the screen showed him surveillance footage from precisely eleven hours ago. On the bottom right was the allotted time and day. The camera had a perfect view of the tunnel leading down from the main entrance, and on the floor, sodden with blood was Zim himself many hours before. The Irken tried to view his own self with cold indifference. He knew what had happened to him, and didn't really care for a reminder. In the footage, Gir was kneeling by his side, trying to rouse him by shaking his body and pleading with him. The blood was clearly all over his little metallic hands. But he wasn't making the connection, or so it seemed. To think Gir had any malicious intent was a joke. Gir was clearly worried, and confused, like a simpleton waking from a dream to find his parents gone.

Zim shook his head at the footage, clearly at a loss.

Then he could hear the background elevator whirring away, and as the clock ticked down on the recording, Dib presently arrived on the scene carrying his backpack. He was wearing customary his trench coat and he was warily eyeing up the base with fear and trepidation. No doubt Gir had called him somehow, probably through the phone line. He had done it before on occasion.

He watched Dib approach his comatose self, and shadow Gir's posture by kneeling down beside him.

"Zim?" He was whispering in the recording. There was no sign of him having any more interest in the place than necessary, which Zim found strange. He was in an alien base! Grossly unsupervised! He could steal what he wanted, take what he pleased! Vandalise the place! Take pictures with his infuriating camera!

So why wasn't he?

Was it the promise that he had made that was holding true?

He growled in irritation at his own left-sided deafness.

"Computer! Turn the volume up!"

"Yes, Master."

"Zim!" The recording of Dib continued. Then he watched the human eye up the blood, and dip his fingers down into the rapidly cooling pool of green goo. _Yes, it's blood, Dib. Get on with it!_ "Jesus! Jesus, what the hell happened!"

"He won't get up!" Gir was lamenting. "I think he ate too many walnuts! Can you maybe stitch him back up again before he loses anymore sauce?"

There was some static zipping across the screen, and Zim ignored it. Now would be the perfect time for Dib to sneak in a picture or two, or take some souvenir. But he surprised Zim yet again when the human did no such thing. He wrapped up the unconscious Irken in his trench coat and promptly asked the computer for a quick route back up top. He watched Dib retreat, himself in the human's arms.

Then the footage faded to black.

"End of recording." Droned the computer.

Zim ran a careful hand down his crooked antenna, causing him to flinch. He grumbled again. Touching it even gently hurt.

Why did Dib do that? He could have left him to die. Just like before in the wire trap.

They got on as well as enemies could. But surely the bottom-line of their relationship hadn't changed? Surely they were still at war?

"There must be some mistake."

There had been something in Dib's eyes last night while he had lain, impotent on the couch. What was it?

Pity? Sadness? Shame? Dib KNEW something. He had been acting so strange, as of late. For months. Almost as if he was... sad. Like Dib was with a friend who had cancer. And it had nothing to do with his hearing impairment.

He could not put his finger on it. Human emotions were beyond him, and more complicated than he could handle. He was still trying to learn their behaviour and conduct after all this time, and even then, sometimes what they did went against all that he had learned.

"Shit!" He went to kick at a loose bit of tubing imbedded in the wall, and when his boot connected with the metal cylinder, he felt something split in his side. "YWOUCH!" He hobbled backwards, slapping both hands to his bandaged side. "Damn this PAK!" He cringed, coughing. When he coughed, he winced from the fresh pain it caused in his spooch. "Why hasn't it healed me yet? This sort of injury should take but a day to heal completely! Oh Irk!"

He limped over to the console and started running his claws over its translucent keys.

"Computer. Run an efficiency test on my PAK. What is its functioning capacity?"

A portable apparatus descended from the ceiling and a beam of light erupted from its moveable dome-like head. The beam was pinpointed into a concentrated red line from a slit in the dome, and then the line expanded until it became a curtain of pink light. This light descended over Zim's PAK like a soundless waterfall as it scanned the exterior and interior of the artificial organ. The process only took a mere moment. Soon the portable dome had packed itself away and the computer was digesting the data. Presently, Zim stood waiting with about as much patience as he could manage. Finally the computer replied with a visual display of numbers running down its giant screen. A lot of the numbers were accompanied by Irken symbols.

Zim tried to read through these analytically, setting his feelings aside. Sometimes he was awfully glad he had been trained like he had, or he may have broken down right then and there.

He scrolled down the results, his claws tapping on the keys occasionally like he was slowly playing the piano. Ironically he was expecting these concise results. They matched what he had already suspected.

 _One thing after another._

"I strongly advise contacting the Tallest." The computer advised in its intoned indifference.

"Ha. Yes." He even laughed as if he found the whole thing to be quite amusing. He couldn't remember the last time he had laughed, or even smiled. In fact his facial muscles even ached when he tried to smile. But then, Irkens had not been built to smile, laugh or play. Only the Tallest had that luxury.

He decided to take matters into his own hands, like he often did, with consequence. Turning to the console, he mentally disconnected himself carefully from his PAK, a foolish thing to do when he was still healing from a grave injury.

The PAK neatly landed on the console before him, and straight away he opened it up using a dismantling tool. The protective outer shell fell away, revealing the precious gizmos and circuits inside that were delicate once opened for inspection. These high-tech instruments that served as a brain that kept his organs running at optimum efficiency were now out of date. Every warrior Irken, or even a simple engineer, knew their time would come one day, and usually a war-bred Irken hoped to meet his end in a great battle where he could make his race proud. But sometimes an Irken lived far longer than expected through the high-stresses of military life, and soon came the day when they were evaluated to have their PAKs not only replaced, but upgraded so that they could serve their military term for another hundred or so years. Deemed unfit however, and their PAKs would be cast aside, leaving the Irken to die miserably before a crowd of onlookers. This was every unlucky Irken's fate, should he live long enough to fail.

Extra nervous whenever he detached himself from his life-support because he was one step away from death, Zim looked through the wiring, finding that some of it was starting to fray. All of this could not be replaced by any rogue Irken. The Tallest were wise to pick and choose the elites they wanted to keep for future missions, and the riff-raff were unable to modify their own PAKs. Sometimes Irkens did try, only to later fail and end up dying from botched attempts. None had ever succeeded.

He himself could ask for an upgrade. He needed new parts to expand his life majorly. But only Irkens with promotions were allowed certain upgrades to ensure that their encoded memory and DNA survived another generation. For the Empire was very selective.

And if nothing changed, Zim was sentenced to die a natural death.

That was how the Tallest lived for so long, their body chemistry never aging. Because they were Irken leaders, they were basically immortal. Their PAKs were automatically upgraded every ten years.

He tried to clean out some dust that had settled around the little cables and buttons, being careful not to nudge anything out of place. But there was little else he could do.

Recovering the shell back onto his PAK and sealing it closed, he stood patiently while it redelivered itself back into the slots inside his spine. The connection was briefly uncomfortable as an electrical discharge burned down his system. Once it had passed, he straightened, breathing deeply only to then splutter with coughs.

Yes, a call to the Tallest would be practical. If he asked for a new PAK now, however, he would need to leave Earth to be evaluated. And he was nervous because of what nearly happened the last time **.***

"Computer. What is Gir up to?"

Another monitor squeezed through a miasma of tubing to present itself, and on the flat screen was a LIVE feed of Gir bouncing and flailing on the couch. On the TV was a Pokémon commercial. Nothing untoward there. Nothing at all. Gir was being his usual, stupid self.

Zim sighed and pushed the monitor away. In response the screen folded up and disappeared back into the confines of the wall.

Quickly he brushed down his uniform to disperse it of wrinkles, and tried to cover some of the material over the ugly once-white-now-green gauze showing through the hole. And though he tried to flatten his crooked, sensitive antenna as much as it made him wince, it always sprung back up again, as bent as before.

Though he tried to make himself look presentable, he still looked a mess.

Oh well. What did he have to lose?

"Computer." He said soberly. "Please contact the Tallest and uplink their feed onto the main view screen."

* * *

 ***** The Trail: an unaired Invader Zim episode.

 **Dib07:** Well, there ya go. So much yet to decipher. What is exactly going on with Gir? Is Dib still insane? Will Zim get what he wants? Anyway, hope you enjoyed another crazy chapter. Please review, and let me know what YOU think. Your opinion matters and I reply to everyone. Even those who are anonymous. See you all next time!


	4. Hanging on a Promise

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **A/N:**

A huge shoutout to all those reading this story! I love you guys!

 **Piratemonkies64,** this chapter is dedicated to you! :)

I smoothed a few errors out in this chapter!

I don't know what else to say other than this: I adore what you're doing. I will cherish every recording you do, no matter how few or how many. You've given me such endless enjoyment that I cannot possibly ever repay. And for that, I salute you.

For those of you who do not yet know, please check out piratemonkies youtube channel! It has the first 3 chapters of Saving Zim to listen to at your leisure! You'll love it!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 4: Hanging on a Promise**

He always got a little bit nervous when he was calling them, especially if he looked less than his best. For an Irken, appearance was everything.

The main view screen filled with static as his computer readily located their signal. If the Massive was on the dark side of a planet, it was sometimes impossible to contact them until their satellites were in better range, with less radioactive planetary interference. Sometimes the signal did not get through at all, making Zim fret and worry.

He did not need to worry this time. The signal connected successfully and he was looking in on the royal chamber where the Tallest liked to sit, or stand whilst receiving messages or drafting Irkens to war. Or eating snacks.

When he saw no one, he called and called anxiously.

"My Tallest? Hello? It's Zim! I need to make a tiny, little, ever so small request! HELLO?"

One of them looked in on him. It was Almighty Tallest Red. "Oh. You. I had just about forgotten what you looked like. Now you've reminded me. Great." He said, his sarcasm dark and bitter.

"My Tallest! Greetings!" The little invader cried, saluting smugly. "I have a request!"

"Wait, wait." Tallest Red looked off-screen and make a 'come here' gesture. "Purple, Purple! Come look at this!"

Zim waited, standing as straight and tall as he proudly could.

Tallest Purple now joined Red. Then Purple began to laugh.

Zim smiled too, trying to get in on the joke even though he had no idea what it was.

"Are you pregnant, Zim?" Tallest Red blurted at last. "Don't you realize that it's against all of Irken Law to create smeets without authorization? Smeets are products of war you know."

"Let's be done with it and just execute him anyway!" Purple said happily.

"No, no my dear Tallest!" Zim hurried to say, "I suffered a minor incident, as is common on the battlefield. My spooch is just a bit... swollen! I am not pregnant! That's just silly!"

"Oh. He's not pregnant. Can't we execute him anyway?" Purple asked, looking hurt.

Red pushed him out the way and confronted Zim. "Back to business. What do you need? A noose? A pinch of shmoop to swallow? A grenade? A vacuumless void?"

"I would like an upgrade!"

"An upgrade? To what? Your brain?"

"Almost! It's my PAK! It's running a bit low on power and I thought..."

Red's face grew dark, and his long antennae arched upwards in a show of aggression. "You're asking _us_ for an upgrade, Zim?"

"Yes, my dear Tallest! I fear that my current PAK is wearing thin, and I need a new one to continue the annihilation of planet Earth!"

"It's been twenty two years, Zim." Tallest Purple cut in. "And you haven't conquered anything. Have you?"

"Oh, but I'm so close! I can feel it! Please! One more push and the Earth is yours! I'll even throw in the moon! It's kinda useless, and I did promise it to Gir, but you can use it as target practise!"

Red looked at Purple, and Purple looked at Red. Then they just burst out laughing. "He... he wants an upgrade!"

"Yeah! To prolong our torment!"

"The defect... wants an UPGRADE!"

Zim waited. He could never quite get their jokes.

"And... and he looks so... so pregnant!" Red laughed, holding his sides.

"Oh Irk I'm gonna die from laughter this time for sure!"

The transmission cut off suddenly, and Zim jumped with panic. "My Tallest? Hello? You've been cut off!" He faced the ceiling. "Computer! Re-establish link!"

"Link up-load failure. They had ended the link, Master."

"Oh, dookie." He touched his sore side and stood there, nonplussed. _Did they just deny me, ZIM, an upgrade because I look... pregnant? I'm only a little swollen. That means I'll have to try again when I look more... acceptable._

-x-

Dib sat at the desk with his headphones hanging around his neck as he typed up yesterday's morning report that would later be issued in the Franklin newspaper. The day hadn't been very busy, in fact very little of anything had happened. Such boring days did occur, and he eagerly awaited the call from his boss that would send him out onto the field for real investigation work. For now though, he was deep in dull legislation. Around him were other paranormal investigators, all working in different fields.

Dib liked to think he was an expert on all paranormal events, but he could only be assigned to two things, his study being aliens and ghosts: the two most popular events. Any sightings related to these two topics kept him out of the office and enabled him to travel. Whereas some investigators studying vampires or swamp moles rarely left their post at all, unless they got a call about some drunken guy who had thought he had seen some man suck on another man's neck, mislabelling him as some mythic creature. It happened quite a lot. Aliens and ghosts were taken much more seriously, even though most of them in the end turned out to be terrible hoaxes.

His boss, Clifford, looked in at Dib from his office. "Dib. Line 2. Take the call."

"Sure." He picked up one of the phones by his computer and held it to his ear. As he waited for the call to be patched through, his tired eyes overviewed his desk. It wasn't very clean. There were coffee stains on the desk, and his ashtray needed emptying. There was a picture frame of his father and sister, taken in the summer five years ago. Next to it was a tiny toy figure of Zim that he had made himself out of bits of old plastic and glue. The likeness was very accurate.

"Hello? Is this the 'extraterrestrial sighting' department?" Shouted some hysterical woman down the line.

"Yes, it is ma'am." His professionalism took over. "This is Dib Membrane. What did you see exactly? And where did it happen?" He flipped open a notepad and started scribbling down notes.

"It's Mrs. Hoffman to you." Came her rattled reply. He had a mental image of her already. "And yes I saw an alien! Don't question me because it was! I knew what I saw, and I wasn't on any drugs! I swear on Almighty God of what I saw!"

"When did this event occur?"

"Event? Don't give me that! This was a real alien! I saw it only two days ago! I tried to call various times to your department but no one would answer!"

"Ah yeah. We're shut on weekends. Lack of staff."

"And you call yourselves investigators? Look, I know what I saw! It was big and scary!"

Dib sighed inwardly. Most people who saw aliens were hysterical, this was true. But usually flashing streetlights in a thick fog were mistaken for landing UFOs and little misshapen dogs for Martians. "Uh huh. And what did you _see_ exactly Mrs. Hoffman?"

-x-

The local woods belonged in a national park where people came to tour the wilderness outside the city. It used to be Native American territory. Now it belonged to red woods, squirrels and apparently aliens.

Dib arrived on the site with his newly appointed assistant: a female he had never worked with before. He didn't like bringing newbies out with him without the proper training, because they only slowed him down. Along for the trip was Gary who did the interviews. Mrs. Hoffman was there, pointing at the woodland and shouting hysterically, repeating the same story to any who would listen.

"It was in there! Just to the left of that old river! It had some equipment out! I'm pretty sure it was equipment!"

Dib nodded and decided to look himself if just to get away from her yelling. In his backpack was his camera, torch, notepad, senor array and DNA sampler. He preferred to work alone, and left the new girl with Gary.

The woods were dark, even this early in the morning. The canopy of leaves above threw out long, ever-shifting shadows across the carpet of grass, producing a sense of mystery and menace. He was told that wolves lived here, though their sightings were chalked up as myths.

The river was really a small stream that cut through the wood like an artery. There were signs of recent activity here, he had to admit. There were heavy scorch marks up a tree. Two days old, maybe? And some of the grass had been flattened, as if something had come along and sat on it for awhile.

He mused to himself, thinking that Mrs. Hoffman may not have been lying after all.

Dib naturally didn't want to get excited. More aliens meant more Irkens and he didn't know if he should be happy or scared at the prospect. For he always believed that Zim was quite capable of calling for backup.

He only started to believe he was dealing with aliens when he saw the too-obvious boot marks in the mud nearest the river where the grass began to thin out. And the boot marks were very small indeed. They were Zim-sized boot marks. His heart filled with dark dread as he fetched out his torch and cut through the shadows with its intervention. As he continued to search the immediate area, he found broken branches and one misshapen machine part. It was Irken in nature: its design was too familiar. Dib was now angry. The Voot had landed here, and Zim and Gir must have had a fucking picnic out in the goddamn open.

"Fuck's sake."

Sprinting like a gazelle, he broke free from the woods and rushed back to the investigators and straight for Gary who was busy recording the interview with Mrs. Hoffman. He almost barrelled into them, stopping just in time before he smashed into the new girl. He didn't even know her name.

"So sorry, Gary." Dib said, out of breath. He blamed his lack of stamina on the cigarettes. "But there are half price donuts right now at Marmalade's."

"You're serious, right?" Gary looked at him with such scepticism that Dib thought his ruse was blown. "They NEVER sell their donuts at half the price! Dear Lord I'd better hurry before they sell out! You don't mind finishing up the interview do you?"

"Not at all. I just need what you've recorded so far."

"Okay. Just don't tape over anything." And Gary gave him the video camera, microphone and tape recorder. Then he quickly started heading across the meadow towards the car, leaving Dib with Mrs. Hoffman and the girl.

Before Dib had even got the equipment ready, Mrs. Hoffman was off on another tirade.

"Oh it was horrible! Just horrible! I only came out this way because I heard noises! Really loud banging noises! And I thought to myself that I'll just check it out, you know? Thinking it was just some crazy kids playing around 'en such. That's when I saw it! Stalking about in them trees!" Dib pretended to record her by resting the camera on his arm and looking through the lens when in fact he had just erased all of Gary's previous work.

"Uh huh." Dib encouraged, wondering how much she had actually seen.

"It had fiery red eyes that glowed in the dark! Satan's eyes! And its skin was green I think! And it looked so vicious! It had a gun!"

"A gun?"

She seemed pretty shook up, and Dib suspected that she was exaggerating a little. But he had to throw her off the scent.

 _I'm saving him twice in two days. I MUST be insane. If it wasn't for his whole degeneration thing I wouldn't even be bothering, would I? Zim must have come out here two days ago. For what, I have no idea. But man I am going to KILL him for this!_

"Okay Mrs. Hoffman. Did you get a picture of this creature?"

"No I didn't."

"Well, I hate to tell you this, but what you saw on Saturday night was just a kid in a costume."

"What?" She looked truly baffled.

"Yeah. A little kid. He got lost in the woods after he pranked everyone with a toy gun. He thought it was Halloween."

"But it's February." She said.

"Exactly."

"And those scary, evil eyes he had?"

"Make up." Dib pressed, thinking up last-second excuses. He felt the girl looking at him peculiarly, but he took no notice of her.

The worry began to lift from Mrs. Hoffman's face as if she had just escaped from a trap. "Really? All I saw was just a child in a costume?"

"Yeah. Totally."

"Oh thank god! And here I was, thinking we were being invaded by aliens!"

 _We were invaded two decades ago, but sure, whatever._

He remained affable with Mrs. Hoffman and offered to take her back to the office for some coffee, which she declined. However, inside he was angry with Zim. VERY ANGRY. It was horribly ironic that he was now trying to defend the stupid alien after suffering such ridicule as a child in school and then college. Now the tables were turning and it felt like a massive joke was being played on him.

And Zim was ignorant to it all of course. That had never changed.

Mrs. Hoffman, looking relieved, got in her own car to drive home. Dib turned the video camera off and was about to head on over to his own car as well when the new girl rose a hand out to him. He stared at it as if her hand was a keen, double-edged knife.

"So you're Dilbert, right?"

"Uh, no, it's just plain ol' Dib. Dib Membrane." He said uncomfortably, but he took her hand in his and shook it. Her hand was very soft.

He was scared of her, he found. Scared of all women. And now he was truly sorry he had bumped into her without apologizing.

Their hands parted.

"I'm Clara. So you're the famous son of Professor Membrane? Oh my... what an honour!"

Dib tried to smile but it was a miserable failure and he suspected that he was sweating already. He was never very good with the opposite sex and he wasn't sure how well Gaz represented the female species in general. For all he knew, they were all stubborn, impatient and plain rude just like her.

"I wouldn't get too excited. Me and my dad are very different. He's into science and well, I'm here, trying to catch ghosts on camera and chasing aliens through national parks. What about you? You're new to this outfit, aren't you?"

He had barely so much as looked at her since arriving at the park, not just because she was new, but because she was a girl. He didn't want to like her. Liking her would mean nothing but disappointment in some way or other. She probably had a boyfriend, or had kids. No way was she single, and even if she was, there was no way she'd ever fancy him. He was a scrawny dork who wore glasses and smoked. No one wore glasses anymore. They were seen as old-fashioned. Most people used eye contacts instead, or just had the eye laser surgery.

"Yes. I started last week. Much of the time I was just filling out questionnaires and watching training videos before they let me anywhere near my own office."

"So why did you join the investigation team, if you don't mind me asking?" They started walking back to his car, a car whose seats were still slightly green and damp with alien blood. She had not brought her own transport: Gary had brought her over, and now Gary was gone; seeking donuts that were not half price.

"Well, I really want to get into the field of zoology, but in order to be certified I have to be a paranormal investigator for a year before I actually qualify."

"Zoology, huh? You like animals?"

"Very much so, all types really. The weirder, the better. So, what are your hobbies?"

 _Chasing little green aliens._ He thought, smiling despite himself. "I watch TV." He lied, trying to appear normal, but instead it came off sounding boring. "You?"

"Oh, I like dancing, and music."

He was so nervous. He was not used to this! If there was a guide book on How-To-Talk-To-girls, he would be flicking through it right now. "I also like... games."

"Video games?"

"Yeah. I mainly play them with Zim..." His insides dropped at the realization of his mistake. "Uh... oh I mean... myself!"

"Zim?" She asked, looking at him funny.

"Yeah, he's... this... friend. Sorta. He's a little insane."

They got to his car. The green blood stains looked particularly bad under the full light of the morning sun. There was no way she would _not_ see them. Unless she got in the back.

 _Great. First chance I get chatting to a girl and Zim fucks it up for me somehow without him even being here._

"Urm, seats are still a bit wet at the front. Had them cleaned recently because... because I spilled lots of diet poop all over them. Mind scooting to the back?" He asked, hoping she wouldn't mind.

"No, of course not."

Dib sighed in relief.

They drove back to the office where he was expected to report in. He dropped Clara off and waved her goodbye. As he watched her make her way back to the office department, he wished he was someone else, someone with the confidence to ask girls out, to step out of line once or twice, and to not give a flying fudge about Irken Invaders.

-x-

But he did care.

Unfortunately.

And he had decided that he was not putting up with this shit anymore.

"ZIM!"

Dib practically had the door explode inwards after he kicked it. Gir was seated on the couch, eyes wide, and when he saw Dib, he threw his arms up and whooped eagerly. "It's Dib! You wanna sit next to me and have some ham? I have plenty of ham! Master just made some fresh, wet biscuits! I saved some and hid them under the sofa!"

Dib closed the door behind him and looked about wildly. He hated being here but his anger disregarded any previous anxieties.

"Where is he?"

He noticed that Gir had part of his hand missing. It made the robot look odder than usual. Then again, Gir was known to lose things.

The human heard the toilet elevator before Gir had time to reply. Zim stepped out of the toilet with surprising dignity and walked on over with a hard stare. But it was difficult to see the alien as anything but intimidating when he was limping. Badly. "Oh! What is it this time?" The Irken moaned in a groggy, croaky voice. "Can't you see I'm busy? And look, you're trudging mud everywhere! I can't keep having you come here, in MY base..."

Dib pretty much screamed at him. It was the first time he was truly angry, and at once he noticed Zim's posture completely change. His smooth antenna flattened right down, and he _almost_ shied back a little as if Dib was growing taller and taller before him in his rage.

"What do you think you were doing, you idiot?"

Zim still held his ground. His left eye narrowed. "D-Doing what? How... how dare you come in here and accuse Zim of..."

"You were in the woods weren't you on Saturday night? Waterfall National Park ring any bells? And you went out without your disguise again, didn't you?"

"I... I was..."

"You idiot! They're going to find you, they're going to capture you, and they're going to kill you, Zim! Don't you care? Shouldn't you be just a little more vigilant?"

Zim snarled, and his look of fright passed suddenly. "YOU don't tell ZIM what to do, you fucking little worm! I can do as I please! You forget your place!"

"And what place is that, Zim? Tell me! Is that where I stand, watching you get dissected? Is my place watching you scream and cry while they hack your arm off? Because this is the reality! I won't be able to save you when they come for you!"

"Why do you talk to me like you're not one of them?" He barked back hoarsely.

Dib caught himself. Then he blew his top. "You're right! What the hell am I thinking? You're a fucking alien, spreading mayhem and carnage! I should have exposed you while I was still in school! Stop causing me such grief!" He spun round. He was done.

"Dib!"

Dib didn't stop. He approached the door. Then he opened it with a massive jerk of his hand.

"Dib stop!"

He stepped out onto the sunlit porch. The birds were singing but he didn't hear them.

"You don't turn your back on me, Dib worm! You promised me you wouldn't!"

Dib then did stop. But he was trembling with anger. Hot breath kept storming out of his partly opened lips. Without even looking at him, his eyes locked on his car instead, he answered coldly; "You're an alien. And you believe in promises?"

"Humans do. You owe me."

"I owe you nothing."

"Because of you, I'm half deaf."

"I haven't forgotten." Dib looked over at him then, his anger a little less. "It was an accident. You can't hold it against me your whole life."

"Was it an accident?"

The hate and rage returned, and Dib stormed down the garden path to his car. "Tonight then, at the Treaty." Dib yelled as he opened the car door. "And don't be late!"


	5. The Treaty

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi all. Hope you are still enjoying this story. It came to my attention, are these chapters too long? Too complex?

Should I edit them down? I can understand if people don't want to read reams and reams of writing. So let me know in the reviews or PM me, okay? Thanks to you all.

And thank you kindly for reviewing and telling me I'm doing okay.

Sorry for not updating yesterday. There was a big problem with our internet connection in our area. But it's fixed now! (fingers crossed)!

xxx

 **G.S:** A mega thank you for your lovely review! That made me smile all day! The feedback people are leaving is giving me massive inspiration.

1\. Yes, I am English!

2\. Hahahaha! XD

Aw thank you! I have to say that is by far one of the biggest compliments I have ever had when writing these 2 characters.

Yeah the Tallest are pretty mad. I don't think they even know what gender gets pregnant anymore! They are so complacent! So reliant on technology! And snacks of course! But thank you again. Just knowing that you are entertained by this story is all I need. I do understand if I don't get everything right, but so far so good. Even I'm really invested in this story which is unusual for me. I hope you don't find this story too lengthy! :) Have a lovely day and I hope you like this chapter too!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 5: The Treaty**

"You're awfully quiet tonight, Fudgekin. Usually the customers are leaving by about this time because of all your shouting!" Dib playfully said as he twirled the straw between his fingers. As it was, the bar was pretty empty anyway. It was a Monday night after all, and though they did not come to drink here very often, they had mutely decided to meet regardless. Routinely they came here on a Monday and Friday, for their own private reasons.

"DON'T call me by that name." The invader snapped without looking at the human. One arthritic claw testily scratched beneath the hem of his wig. He hated wearing his disguise as much as he hated listening to the Dib banter.

"What? 'Fudgekin?' But it's a cute name."

"The term 'cute' is reserved for pathetic bunnies, drooling, ugly babies and plush teddy bears. Zim will not be dubbed by the same idiotic term."

"Ooh, posh words!" Dib drank down the last dredges of beer and waved at the bartender for another round. Zim was still nursing his whiskey. He had barely touched it. Dib looked down at him. They weren't exactly eyelevel, what with Zim being that much shorter. Dib had to bring a cushion to the bar whenever they wanted a drink, or Zim would not have been able to reach the bar table, let alone drink from it. "Everything going well at home?"

"Everything's FINE!"

Dib assumed he was still bitter from earlier. "Look, I'm sorry I shouted at you yesterday. But you can't just go out and do... things. Your memory is getting worse. I think you just forgot to wear your disguise. What were you even doing at the National Park?"

"I was getting stiff. I thought that the sap from the trees might make for good massage oil. Gir was helping."

Dib put his head in his hands, and groaned. "You've been watching those stupid commercials again, haven't you? Look, if you're really that stiff, I can get you something that will help. What is it? Your shoulders? Your hands?"

"Pah? Help? Are you really so dumb, human filth? I needed the oil... for Gir, YES!"

"I hate you, you know." Dib said with a chuckle.

Zim took a long swallow from the whiskey. He never had much of a taste for human alcohol. It was weak at best, and its impurities irritated his sore spooch from time to time if he happened to select a cheap brand. Human alcoholic drinks didn't taste as good or were as strong as the ones you could drink on Irk. But he tolerated them, and if he drank them sufficiently, sometimes he felt inebriated enough to relax. Sometimes he even laughed.

The bar was called: The Treaty, and for them it was local, and provided the seclusion they were after from their busy lives. How they made these meeting arrangements at the bar was quite unorthodox.

They liked to keep in touch, just to see how the other was doing.

The thing was, neither liked having the other on their home turf, so they decided to meet on neutral ground instead. Dib got what he wanted: he got to spy on Zim while being out in public, and learn all he could. Zim meanwhile had a likewise agenda: to keep up-to-date on human terminology and get all the latest gossip from his childhood nemesis. After the first few meetings at The Treaty, it slowly became a tradition. And they had kept it going for five or so years. Dib liked to bitch about work, and girls. Zim ranted about anything worth ranting about.

Dib received his fresh beer and placed it on the coaster. "They added a new member to the team today. It's a young girl."

"Not another one." Zim huffed, barely paying attention. He found it harder to hear when his antennae were trapped beneath his wig and so sometimes Dib had to speak extra loud to him.

"Yeah. She's kinda cute. Was her first day today, and already she believes in everything. Even the obvious fakes. I showed her that YouTube video of 'the Grifter' and she swore that it was genuine without any further proof. I tell ya, these days I'm proving the fakes from the genuine on stinkin' Youtube videos! Forget the real stuff! Everyone's obsessed with creepy pastas and crazy videos!"

While Dib went on a bit of a tirade, classifying all the latest YouTube hoaxes, and going on to mock spooky home videos, Zim was caught in a daydream. Before him the Tallest looked down, their faces bleak with cold disapproval. _"You're asking us for an upgrade, Zim?"_

" _Yes, my dear Tallest! I fear that my current PAK is wearing thin, and I need a new one to continue the annihilation of planet Earth!"_

" _It's been twenty two years, Zim." Tallest Purple had cut in. "And you haven't conquered anything."_

"Zim? Hello? Earth to Zim?" Zim's eyes widened and he blinked several times as Dib waved a hand in his face.

"Yes? What?"

"You were gone for a minute there. What's eating you?"

Zim checked about himself for a moment. "Nothing's eating me." He looked genuinely confused. He did not get the term. He still took so much literally, even when Dib painstakingly tried to teach him the lingo of the human language and its phrases.

Even though the bar was filled with human conversation, and the occasional clink of glass against glass and the shuffle of chair legs, he could still hear Tallest Red laughing at him.

Dib tried to have a go at guessing why Zim was so obviously upset. Zim got emotional. He did not like to think that he _did_ get emotional. He was an Irken warrior blah blah blah, but truth was, Zim was such a girl, and he kept things close to his chest, while at other times threw tantrums, and had mood swings that made even an angry menopausal woman look tame in comparison.

"When was the last time you saw your home planet?"

As usual, Zim took it the wrong way. "Why? Want me to bail?"

"No, it was just a question. Jeez, Zim, you always take things so literally. So...?"

"So?" He eyed him bitterly, as if rallying for a confrontation.

"Don't you miss it? You know? Your home planet? Even though Earth's getting more polluted every day, and it's slowly filling up with morons, I'd still miss it if I had to leave and travel to some place in the universe."

Zim reached forwards and grabbed Dib's beer. He took a brief sip and coughed. "I'm not nostalgic, Dib stink. Besides, Irk doesn't come with the same comforts of your dirty 'Earth.' It's a militarized planet full of enslavers and hard principles. They find out quick if you don't have what it takes to be in the Armada. If you don't get assigned to anything useful, your life is forfeit. So there isn't much _to_ miss."

Dib was visibly taken aback by Zim's response. Did Irkens really live in such a cutthroat society? He could not get his head around it. "Didn't it have any memorable landscapes?"

"Ha! No, no Dib. You seem to keep forgetting that Irkens are not interested in dreams, beauty or anything other than the next mission or the next promotion. Quit humanizing us."

"But..."

"You are too soft in the head to understand."

"You have a heart in there somewhere, space demon." He said with a soft chuckle.

"Oh, you mean that irksome thing that keeps beating in my chest? Oh yeah. I believe so."

"So, what's your next evil plan?"

Zim smiled at that. "Oh ho! I can't wait! I can't tell you! Oh no! It's a secret! But oh it's going to be something!"

Dib smiled back, and drank his beer. He secretly knew that Zim had no plan. And hadn't planned the plan in years. There was no way he was going to start now. But he went along with it anyway, because Zim was smiling. He liked it when he smiled.

After wiping his face from the froth, he turned on his bar stool to lay eyes on the room. It was quietly filling up with people. The tables were still mostly unoccupied, but not long after he had turned to have a fresh outlook on the bar, the door opened from outside and a young girl stepped in from the gusty winter winds. Zim noticed that Dib's attention was divided, and glanced over his shoulder to see what had caught his eye. He saw the girl too, and though the girl represented nothing to him, it sparked great interest in his old adversary.

For the meantime, the Irken said nothing. Dib was watching her with great intent, like a tiger watching a young fawn. Dib's attention on females infuriated Zim for awhile back in their former years, for Zim was used to getting all the attention. But Dib's interest in girls never amounted to much, so, feeling less threatened, he had simmered down.

Zim by now was familiar with human courtship. He had seen plenty of it in movies, TV shows and even computer games. It was usually an unavoidable plot point in most of what he watched. To him this emotional attachment of two people meant nothing to him. For he could never understand the human brain, and the hormones in play. His sexual reproductive organs have been subdued, leaving the bare essentials so that he could still pee and defecate. In essence, he had been robbed of his species own natural procreation. He could not even develop the necessary pheromones that otherwise would have induced the feeling of 'love' that came so naturally to a human being. Thus, he was also unable to have the necessary paternity in order to protect his own Irken young.

He had been manufactured rather than 'born.'

So 'love,' though he understood the bare bones of its concept, meant about as much to him as a hamburger meant to a chimpanzee.

When he could take Dib's stares no longer, he finally asked: "Why don't you begin a ritual courtship with her? You've been ogling her since she's sat down."

His words seemed to break the strange spell the girl seemed to have on his human. "That's not how it works, Zim. Besides, she's way out of my league. She probably has a boyfriend at home, they usually do. Do you even know how it works Zim? Sex?"

"I've watched the movies, Dib worm."

Dib grinned deviously at him. And just for good measure he decided to trade a nickname for a nickname. "Just movies, Fudgekin?"

Zim couldn't understand what he was getting at. "Yes?"

"Oh Zim. You're missing out." He drank down some more beer while Zim watched, perplexed. Then he placed it back on the coaster. It was nearly all gone. What was left was just froth and bubbles. "You wanna head on outside? It's getting a bit stuffy in here."

 **x**

Zim threw on his winter wrapping (courtesy of his human) and followed Dib outside into the rampant winds. It was refreshing to steal into the serene cold where there was nothing but the breath of winter. Behind them, the noise of the humans continued in the warm, brightly lit bar.

It was just starting to snow.

Zim looked up and brought out a claw to catch the first few flakes. He was well covered, wearing a warm little fluffy coat, scarf and mittens. And a snugly bobble hat. So he was quite safe from the sting of the falling snow. But snow never harmed him as much as rain did, for the rain was a better incubator of pollution, whereas snow carried diluted toxic impurities.

Dib lit a cigarette and deeply inhaled the noxious fumes. Zim stood against the curb railing, watching the silent snowflakes decorate the pavement in their dozens. Such weather fascinated and repulsed him. Irkens were not a fan of cold weather, or wet weather. Wet weather bred germs and mud. And Irkens were not a fan of the cold. Like their ancestral bugs, they got slow and stiff. He loved the summer though, and the endless hot days where everything was colourful and clean again. But regardless, he did like watching the snow, even if he disliked its purpose.

And now, in his senior years, he was finding that his joints hurt a lot in the cold.

Dib watched him, noticing that Zim had more wrinkles under his eyes as of late. He had had wrinkles under his eyes for years – so really it was nothing new. But today they seemed far more prominent as if he hadn't slept in awhile. Then the Irken brought a hand to his mouth and coughed, then coughed again. Dib did wonder if his alien was picking up a cold. Then again, the winter always made Zim more moody than normal, and he got the shakes pretty badly. Last year was pretty mild. The worst they ever got was frost on some grey February mornings. This year it looked like they were in for a particularly cold one.

He offered his cigarette to the alien, who snarled at its stench. He always frowned at the human whenever he lit up.

"Wanna try it? Aren't you at least curious?"

"Curious to know exactly how that poison feels when it enters my body? I'd rather drink acid."

"Suit yourself."

"They are filthy sticks of great filth, Dib worm. Why do you snort them up every evening?"

"Because they make me feel better, I guess. They kind of... relax me."

"You don't look stressed to me."

Dib only smiled. "Sometimes you can't see stress, Zim."

Zim only shrugged, finding that he didn't like standing here in the cold while Dib sullied his lungs. "I'm going home, Dib worm. I have much to do."

"I'll drop you home. I may as well. The sidewalks are particularly icy."

"I can handle a little ice, human." He started off without waiting. He was like that. He didn't like to showcase friendly politeness and often did what he wanted without so much as a farewell. Dib watched him leave, a little daunted but not all that surprised at his proud stubbornness. He did notice how stiffly Zim walked, though. He had mentioned his stiffness before to him. Sometimes it was clear that the cold weather hurt the alien's joints. But Zim, being defensive as always, had claimed that his 'rigidity' was due to the fact that he liked to work late. And so they had left it at that.

Zim did not look back. He never did.

The trip home wasn't a particularly long one, but he needed a bit of quiet so that he could be alone with his thoughts. At least his clothing kept him pretty snug. Dib had bought it for him at Christmas one year. It was quite a luxurious gift too. And it was ironic that Dib gave him such gifts, for the alien found the tradition of Christmas ridiculous. He even went so far as to believe that it was just another trick set up by Dib. This generosity did not sit well with him, and so, for the first few years, Zim never reciprocated the gesture. Until that very day when Dib splashed out with cash, and bought him these super soft winter clothing. So Zim returned the favour for the first time, just to see the look on Dib's face. The gift was nothing special. For he refused to celebrate this 'Christmas' humans were so infatuated with every stinking year. The holiday season just seemed to drive them mad, which frightened him. But he did get Dib a tiny model of Tak's ship. It could fly and everything.

It was only four inches long and two tall, but Dib curiously liked it. It came with its own Irken remote. And just last Christmas they had exchanged gifts again as if it was some sort of running joke between them.

He got Dib an Irken handheld weapon that fired two electrical plasma shots – and two only. They were not dangerous, and were meant only to pacify the enemy. After giving it, Zim feared that the gift was a mistake on his part, but the human never used it against him.

Dib's gift had been an electric heater blanket. Zim avoided using it at first, thinking the blanket would melt his skin off or something. However, during the early weeks of January, it got so cold that even the deepest layers of his hive had him shivering. Even as of this moment, he had the electric blanket on his incubator in his private resting chamber.

The eddying wind whirled around him, sending a spree of snow into the air. As he walked, the snow trying to land on his bobble hat and coat, he wondered how selfish he was to have chosen to remain here, still learning from the humans and holding off on his mission. He was aware that many previous invaders he knew had already had their PAKs upgraded. And all of those Irkens had grown in height by at least two feet.

He had never grown at all.

For the longest time he was sure he'd grow, hoping that, in gaining height, he could spite the Tallest. But he measured his height every week without fail (on Mondays to be precise) and was newly disappointed with each result.

He had never grown a centimetre.

To him, this was unfortunate. All the other Irken soldiers had improved with height. And he had not.

If Dib knew this, and pitied him for his stunted growth, he never let it show.

His breath hung in the air like a speech bubble. He kept his hands in his pockets and, at times, walked with his head bent low whenever the wind hailed down with a new exhalation of snow.

After a long fifteen minute walk, Zim finally reached his culdersack and turned in towards home. He approached the front door and before he even had a chance to knock on it, Gir flung it open for him. He was not wearing his doggie costume.

"Moon!" He yelled jubilantly, pointing behind Zim at a sky filled with twirling snowflakes.

"Yes. It's an amazing, ugly, useless moon, that moon." He pushed past Gir, closed the door and hung up his soft coat, hat, scarf and mittens. Once they were out of the way, he peeled off his human disguise and shoved the contact lenses and wig in a drawer. It felt good to finally let his antennae hang out, especially his crooked one. It hurt if it was trapped under the wig for too long. Then he deposited himself on the couch.

Even in here, it was still quite chilly. The wind moaned outside like sorrowful songs all mixed together, and tatty drifts of snow sailed past the window. He did not wish to go out there again until the spring.

"Gir," he said, "I'm pooped. Make me a sandwich with some of that hot ginnis! If we have any left."

Gir saluted and strutted into the kitchen.

Zim sighed and kneaded his forehead as he looked back on the day's events. "Why am I fraternizing with that Dib anyway?"

His mind was uneasy, his emotions all strung out. The Tallest had left him feeling quite rundown.

 _I've been on Earth for far too long._

And now he was too tired to rally himself back home. His versatile energy had gone and his maniacal restlessness had disappeared with it. He blamed his PAK. It was easier to blame something else other than his own biological shell.

"Gir?" He called hoarsely, listening with his good antenna. "Is it done yet? I'm starving!"

 _That robot..._

Too sleepy to move for the moment, he picked up the TV remote and flicked through the channels. Each channel represented a fresh tirade of crap. That was the problem with Earth. You were condemned to watch their version of 'entertainment.' If you could even call it that. To Zim, it was as sophisticated as drivel. While some human movies were creative, and oftimes intriguing, everything else was just garbage which served only to hurt his brain.

"Gir!" His late healing process had made him more hungry than normal. Some days he went without eating very much at all.

Gir came into the threshold holding a plate. On the plate was a sandwich. Then, before Zim's very eyes, Gir's cyan optics turned a bright red and his lopsided grin turned upside down. He dropped the plate, which smashed to the floor. "Target Acquired." His voice was commanding, and not that dissimilar to his usual inflection.

A circular saw erupted from his chest plate and flew towards Zim. Zim just managed to leap from the couch just as the serrated blade sunk into the cushion where he sat just a moment ago.

The spinning saw blade then sped sideways, still attached to a long strip of wire connected to Gir's integral core within his metallic carapace.

Zim backpedalled from the sofa and into the wall. "Gir! This is your Master! Stand down at once!"

He instantly realized that the first accident had been no fluke after all.

It only then began to dawn on him how much of a problem he faced.

"Target Acquired." Gir intoned once more, his bleeding eyes turning to his Irken master, and the blazing buzzsaw greased through the air towards him at a formidable rate. Zim deployed his spider appendages to dodge out of the way as the buzzsaw thwacked into plaster. There wasn't much room in the lounge for great manoeuvrability.

When he landed in the opposite corner next to a book case, he openly entreated to his robot. "Gir! Gir, stop this madness! What are you doing?"

Had Gir had an accident? Hit his head? Downloaded the wrong program into his database?

Gir paid no heed to Zim's pleading commands. He stood firm where he was, utterly committed.

Zim ducked low, avoiding the spinning blade by inches. He could not afford a new wound. So the lounge took the beating for him as brick dust and tubes began to lather the floor. And Gir was blocking the entrance to his base, for he stood sternly between the lounge and the kitchen almost as if he knew this was where Zim had to go to escape. Of course, Zim could still use the front door, and run out into the road, screaming, but he was not wearing his disguise, and the thought of capture frightened him even more.

As Zim dashed forwards to avoid being skewered, he miscalculated the wrinkles in the carpet and he tripped, twisting his ankle awkwardly as he landed. He screamed out as the blade arched above him, ready to meet its target. He cowered then and there, holding his head in his hands. Irken military training had taught him what to do, should he ever freeze up in a battle. And for the life of him in that precise moment he could not remember any of the training he had undertaken.

Moments passed, and Zim thought that perhaps he _was_ dead, and that the attack had been so sudden he hadn't even felt it. Then he blinked and looked upwards, expecting nothing, and everything. Gir was watching him from the threshold. He hadn't moved, but the blade had gone, retracted away back inside Gir's chest compartment.

Zim stiffly sat up, physically checking himself over for injury. He felt along his abdomen, chest and face. He had all of his claws and his legs hadn't been severed either.

He noticed that the robot's circular eyes of inquisitiveness were now back to a gentle, comely cyan.

"Watcha doin'?" Gir asked with that dumb grin on his face. That smile now unsettled the invader.

The room was a mess of broken plaster, hanging bits of wallpaper and ripped up carpet. Wherever he looked, totally daunted, his eyes always swung back to Gir.

He was breathless, he found, and quite faint. He wasn't sure if it was from pure adrenaline, the shock of Gir's attack, or because of his drained PAK. "But... but you... you were..." It was all he was able to get out. Even his very voice teetered.

Gir cocked his head at him. "Are you playing a game?"

Did he not remember?

Zim managed to stand. His ankle was holding up, but it hurt badly when he experimentally put his whole weight on it.

Then he looked at Gir, unbelieving.

Something was terribly wrong with his robot child.

"Gir..." He began gently, like one would when they're confronting a child who's just done something terrible without knowing its true aftermath, "what is the last thing you remember?"

"Urm, bacon and cheese? No, wait. That was yesterday. Urm, you came home. Yous wanted onions with your ginnis?" Zim looked at him suspiciously from ten feet away. "Can I go outside now? I wanna play with the snow."

"Do you feel odd at all?" The Irken continued patiently.

"No." He said matter-of-factly. "What's 'odd?' Eggs are pretty odd. Does that make me an egg?"

Zim considered this, feeling absolutely daunted. If Gir had no idea of these changes, and no memory, what could that mean? Gir was not malicious. Gir was not evil. Only sentient creatures could be evil. Gir only did what his programming dictated of him, nothing more, and nothing less. So it was possible that his database or even his foundational drives had got corrupted somehow. In the meantime, he was unsure what exactly triggered Gir to go into 'Duty-Mode.' Was the switch totally random, or was there a pattern that triggered it? Either way, he had to get Gir down below so that he could diagnose the problem. It would either be a simple fix, or a tricky one. Regardless, Gir's resolve to kill him or at least maim him was very real. Why this was so remained a mystery, yet it left Zim feeling sick. He just had a brush with death. Again. In a span of days.

"Gir, I need you to listen to me very closely. We're going down below. For some... maintenance."

"Ooh! I like maintance!" Then he seemed to change his mind, and his body posture drooped some. "But maintance sounds... boring."

"Then how about we play a game?" Zim suggested, catering to his childish desires.

Gir perked up instantly. "I LOVE games!"

"Good, Gir. Good."

* * *

 **Dib07** : So there you go. Another day, another chapter. Again if these chapters are way too long, please let me know. I don't want to bore you all with detail and exposition. XD So yeah, back to Gir again. Back to the main problem. Or is it? Thanks again to you all. If it wasn't for your support, this story wouldn't be here, online. I mean it, so thanks again for making me feel welcome.


	6. Downward Spiral

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Omg what can I say? I woke up one morning to find that I have 45 reviews! 45! Omg! To every reviewer: THANK YOU sooo much! This is a gift, and the best way I can honour it is to keep updating! I think I have replied to every reviewer but because my internet has been kinda nuts I don't know if all the messages got sent out. So if I haven't replied to you, just let me know and I will! Sorry for that!

Thanks for the feedback on chapter length. I didn't realize I'd get such a positive response! So I won't take anything out, I promise. Lol.

Gods Zim, what have I done?

* * *

 **CHAPTER 6: Downward Spiral**

He was testy about having Gir behind him as he marched forwards down the sterile corridor. After using the elevator to get down to the fifth level, he had proceeded at a leisurely pace even though he was incredibly anxious to get to the repair bay. He tried to be calm, and unhurried, thinking that this lack of rashness would bestir Gir into tranquillity as well. If he ran down the corridors at speed, all care thrown to the winds, he may trigger another one of the robot's episodes. And he couldn't afford to lose any limbs right about now.

The trip didn't take that long. When Zim had first made his base, he liked it deep, and made it so that if he needed to utilize any one room, he could get there quickly through teleporters, elevators or secret shortcuts.

Gir was mostly his usual, delusional self. He chanted out a song in out-of-tune lyrics without paying any particular attention to where Zim was going.

Finally the Irken reached the repair bay. It was usually a large room, one of his biggest, but as of this moment it was half full with failed experiments, broken-down machinery, and bits and parts he had no allocated place for. Since his 'slowing-down,' he had come here less and less, adding one more pile of rubbish to the last in the hopes of one day fixing it or recycling it. And the piles had all just added up, making it look more like a junk room than a repair bay. To an Irken, this kind of mess was blasphemous. But to Zim, he merely surveyed it all dully from wrinkled, lack-lustre eyes.

"Gir." He snapped to attention, turning to his metallic child. The only child he'd ever have. "Step into the Assessment Chamber for analysis."

"Will it hurt?" Gir looked displeased. And worried. His display of emotions were often too elaborate for something made out of screws and bolts. But then, Irken technology was insanely sophisticated when it came to A.I.

The Assessment Pod did look rather intimidating. For it wasn't made for biological entities. It was roughly egg-shaped, only narrower at the top, with an oval doorway to accommodate small, to medium sized components. Within was a dark array of fibre-optic wires that acted like nerves, and a giant scanning tool. There were also mechanical arms inside, ready to hold and then repair the selected individual.

"Of course not, Gir. The Computer is only going to assess you. It's going to scan you. Like my medical bay does for me. Only instead of organs and flesh, this Assessment Pod will scan your data and upload it for analysis on the main view screen. You don't even have to stand in there for very long."

"I don't?"

Zim remained patient. "If something's wrong with you, Gir, and it's a simple fix, the Assessment Pod will take care of it. Now go inside."

Gir looked from the Pod, to Zim, and back again. Zim shook his head angrily and stepped forward, both claws on Gir's shoulder pads as he pushed him towards the Pod. He felt scared, touching Gir with the new knowledge of what could happen. How could he predict Gir's behaviour now? He could switch in the very next heartbeat, or in the next five minutes. He had no idea. And this loss of control terrified the alien.

Gir started to struggle a little. As the entrance grew tall above them, Zim said, as if in apology, "If you go in, I'll give you an ice tart afterwards. That's if you're good!"

An ice tart was one of Gir's favourite snacks, and Zim's.

Gir stopped struggling and entered the pod on his own accord. Zim stepped back to access the control panel beside the Pod and tapped once on the main green button. The door of the Pod flushed downwards, sealing Gir inside. Then Zim activated the chamber's synchronization and tubes and wires fed into Gir while the main computer began to scan the robot for any defects. This was the part where Zim could only wait.

"I don't want to play this game anymore." He could hear Gir lament through the metal of the door.

"It won't last long, I promise. As I said, it's only a preliminary evaluation. If the computer finds anything out of place, it will painlessly correct it." He was never very sure how much Gir understood of his explanations. From past experiences, probably not very much. And how could a robot even get scared or worried? Was he really programmed to imitate such emotions?

A live feed of Gir's analysis came on-screen in his control panel. So far, everything was up to scratch. Physically, there was nothing wrong with him. There were a few dents in his light armour, a few cosmetic scorch marks. The missing digit of the robot's left thumb which he still had yet to replace. It was all just general wear and tear. Then the Pod began its more complex task of scanning Gir's circuitry, behavioural inhibitors and memory drives. Not long after its initialization, and the on-screen diagram of Gir's schematics began to flash red. It HAD picked something up.

 _So I'm not losing it._ Zim thought with two parts relief, one part dread.

"Computer. State current problem of the S.I.R unit."

"Error code 103. Behavioural modifier chip damaged. Error code 422. Modulator burned out."

He rested his claws on the console. "Rectify these errors at once!"

"Cannot comply. Authorization needed."

"What?" He almost screamed in pure vehemence. The little Irken's shock quickly fell asunder beneath his unrelenting anger. "But I am ZIM! I am authority!"

"Authorisation code 219. In order to install new components, proper approval is needed."

Zim stood, mouth agape for the better part of thirty seconds. Had it heard the computer correctly? The computer spoke clearly and loudly as it was programmed to combat his one-sided deafness, but he was pretty sure he heard it right. "How do I get _proper_ authorisation?" He spat distastefully.

"By uplinking with the Tallest."

"What is 'Authorisation code 219?'"

"Under Brain Control jurisdiction, S.I.R unit customisation is strictly prohibited and must be firstly approved by any commanding superiors. Minor adjustments and repairs under regulation are automatically approved, but any enhancements or adjustments of the S.I.R units must be requested."

Zim tried to digest this. In a way, he had known about this. It was a way of controlling all Irken warriors. Or some warrior might get it in his head to acquire superior technology and turn his S.I.R unit until a freakin' wizard. The Tallest feared 'lowly' Irkens acquiring higher power without proper approval or endorsement.

"Under full penalty of law," continued the computer when Zim merely stood, still bemused, "if an Irken modifies or customizes a S.I.R unit without approval, they are sent to Trial for an official hearing, and then executed for heresy _and_ treachery."

"But... that's okay," Zim stammered, feeling like he had just been hit in the spooch all over again, "I can just call them. Ask for their approval. It's not like I'm asking for S.I.R unit machine gun parts or laser sights. I'm merely requesting a new modulator and modifier chip. That's fairly standard... stuff." He turned to the metal Pod door. "Gir!" He shouted, "Just hang on a little longer. I'm going to contact the Tallest for new parts. This should be but a moment!"

"Oaky dokie!" Came a little voice from within the Pod.

Luckily there was a giant main view screen in the repair bay as well, saving him time going upwards to his main lair. After requesting an audience with his leaders and the computer setting the co-ordinates, the main screen unfolded downwards and opened out, revealing static, zigzag lines as the connection hunted for the Massive's signal. Sometimes the line was busy, and he'd been known to wait days until the Tallest finally answered his signal.

This time however, he didn't have to wait long. The fuzz started to fade and he could suddenly hear his leaders before he could see them through the static. It sounded like they were bickering amongst themselves.

"I say we conquer them! Look at their sleazy towers and their blue carpets! I hate blue! It's a mockery of the Irken race, looking at that carpet!" It sounded like Almighty Tallest Red.

"I know!" Agreed Almighty Tallest Purple. The static was clearing a little more, and Zim, standing small and diminutive, finally saw his two leaders resting in their High Seats. If a human happened to be watching this, they would have noticed that the High Seats looked a lot like elaborate thrones. "And the snacks they served! Despicable! Irken smeets taste better than that trollop they supplied!"

"I agree. Say, how about we see if there's any fresh smeet lying around? THEN we'll consider conquering Shacoozia."

"I like that." Then. "Hey! We've got a transmission. What an ugly... oh wait. It's Zim!"

Zim bowed his head, saluting humbly. Then he peered upward at them, always very aware at his shameful size whenever he hailed them. They commented on his height wryly from time to time, finding his runtish appearance amusing.

"Greetings, my dear Tallest. I hope things are getting on smoothly for you. As it is..."

"Yes?" Tallest Red straightened in his chair. Neither of them had bothered to rise. "Get on with it. Every time you call it's always because you _want_ something. Well, what is it this time?"

"Happy that you could get to the point, my wise leaders. You see, it's this silly authorisation code 219 to be exact. It's my S.I.R unit. He's been acting... violently as of late, and rebuking my commands. You see this?" He quickly turned around slightly and pulled up his pink uniform to show off his gauze-covered wound. "He did that." He lowered his top back down. He would not stipulate exactly how close he had been to death from that one simple blow. "I need a new, um, modulator and a behavioural modifier chip."

"Those things are hard to damage." Almighty Tallest Purple addressed sullenly.

"Yes. Yes they are. I am quite unsure how exactly they got impaired, but with your humble approval, I would like these replaced as quickly as possible."

"You're... looking old, Zim." Tallest Red declared as if he had never really given Zim a proper look in years.

"Am I? I'm so busy destroying the humans that I just don't... notice. And the parts? Will you grant me them?" His perfectly smooth right antenna dipped forwards in hope.

Tallest Purple conferred quietly with Tallest Red for a moment. Their words were whispered, and Zim had no idea at all what they were saying due to his poor hearing. Then Red laughed a moment before whispering something of his own. They often did this during a transmission, and Zim just took it as normal behaviour. After all, the Tallest were likened to Gods to a lowly Irken such as himself, and their conduct was seen as sacred.

Finally they both turned to face him. Even in the main view screen, they looked like a couple of giants leering over him. "Very well. We shall grant you the parts you so require to thank you for being so..."

"Ugly." Purple added.

"And resiliently... pregnant."

Zim bowed once more, even lower than before. His knees were touching the floor. "Thank you, my dear Almighty Tallest. I knew you'd come through for me."

"Just... one more thing, Zim." Tallest Red said. "Before we go, could you just... maybe... run around on all fours? And bark like a human dog does? Just for a moment?"

Zim frowned. "If you like, my... Tallest." Though he saw no value in the act at all. However, you never denied a request from the Tallest, no matter how bizarre. Your life depended on cooperation. So, he bent down on all fours, feeling stupid and sad about it all.

"Yes, that's it." Encouraged Purple, who was now reaching over towards something on his left, off-screen. When he retracted his hand, in his claws was a bag of snacks. He started munching on them vigorously.

"Urm..." Zim started to crawl forwards miserably, wondering what this really entailed. "Bark. Bark bark."

Tallest Red and Purple burst into gales of side-splitting laughter. "You're doing it p-perfectly!" Red tried to say between fits of maniacal giggling.

Zim, not sure what they were getting out of this, crawled round in a small circle, dragging his knees across the floor. "Bark? Bark, bark?"

"I'm... I'm gonna d-die!" Purple was in floods of tears from his hysterical laughter.

Red could barely contain himself either. "Now, poke yourself in the eye! As hard as you can!"

Zim stopped crawling and hesitated. He did not want to do that. "Urm... Can I do it later?"

"No. Do it now, Zim." Red replied, sounding suddenly angry. Meanwhile, Purple was still laughing. It looked like he was in pain, but was laughing anyway.

Zim gulped. He could not disobey them.

"Okay..."

Suddenly, Tallest Purple relaxed some from the hilarity and pressed forwards, his face dark with cunning.

Irken eyes were sensitive, and very intricate.

Zim stood back to his feet and raised his right hand. He looked at it in dismay.

"Hurry it up, Zim." Tallest Red snapped. "You want your supplies don't you?"

"Of course, my Tallest."

He knew he could not make the Tallest wait. But knowingly inflicting pain on himself was a hard thing to do. His vision was important to him. His health, frail at best, was imperative. He had to stay fit to protect his very existence on this enemy planet.

He couldn't think about it any longer. Thinking about it just made him hesitate. So he threw his claws into the meat of his eye, and at once felt hot wetness well up in the orb. Sharp, shrieking pain stole up his face as concentrated red fluid spilled from his left eye lobe.

Satisfied, Tallest Red and Purple leaned back in their High Chairs looking pleased with themselves. As usual, Purple was trying to repress his giggles. So it was Red who spoke. "You've done well, Zim. You may make us proud yet. End transmission." And the screen once again filled with static.

Zim was left with a bleeding eye. Quickly he tried to blindly find his way to the wall where a tiny medi-unit awaited. There were only three medi-units. One in the repair bay, for accidents came easy during long repair jobs, one in medical, and one in his private resting chamber.

The medi-unit functioned for only basic treatment. But it was enough. Quickly grabbing a dispensed vial, he splashed its liquid over his burning hot eye, and screamed when the alcoholic solution landed on the damaged tissues of his eyeball. He'd hit his eye too hard, and his own claws had pierced the tissue.

Once more, his PAK hummed anew as components came to life to begin damage repair. Already overstretched from trying to heal his side, the mechanisms were wearing out.

Zim plastered new padding over his damaged eye, having little idea how long it would take for his eyesight to return. In the meantime he had no choice but to keep it covered to ward off infection. Though, down here, in his sterile base, such a chance of that happening was incredibly low. It was the human world above that might give him trouble in the form of virulent bacteria.

He returned back to the Pod, feeling humiliated. But the Tallest were divine beings, and got whatever they desired. It was a position he had endlessly wanted. It was a position every Irken wanted, big or small. And it was one he'd never get.

"I'm sorry Gir for keeping you waiting." He returned to the control panel and hit a few buttons. The pod's inner door opened, and the tubes and wires holding Gir inside detached. The little robot tiptoed out, looking sheepish.

"Did you go to market?" He asked pensively. "Can I have my ice tart now?"

Zim shook his head. "I ordered new parts from the Tallest. They should be arriving shortly."

"But Master! Your face! There's padding over your eye! What you do? What you do?"

Zim shrugged. "Accident. Fell down some stairs. Now, in the meantime, I need to keep you offline. It's best for us both. That way you can't get into trouble and I can't get into any harm. Now hold still and I'll turn you off until I can get you repaired."

Maybe he had said too much, or too little.

As he bent down to access Gir's head panel, the robot switched to Duty Mode. Zim, having been more cautious since the second attack in the lounge was more alert this time, and jumped away, his spider legs carrying him a greater distance. Even so, there was little he could do to escape the path of the laser. For what emerged from Gir's cranial compartment was a small turret gun, good for flashing out hostiles on a hostile planet. Now it was flushing out his own Master.

"Gir! Gir! Stop! Stop it please!"

The laser jetted outward like a beam of sunlight, cutting through old machinery in its path like they were cardboard cut-outs. With only one eye to see out of, his periphery was lacking, as was his judgement of distances. He blundered into a pile of disused robot parts and the laser cut into his arm. He shrieked bitterly, his one eye narrowing in anger.

He was tempted to turn the tables, tempted to use his own tools to attack Gir. His PAK only had cutting lasers for wielding and separating of machine parts however. Even so, using them for self-defence, he did not have the heart to attack Gir, his own child.

Irkens were not supposed to form attachments to anything living, dead or inanimate unless they were of considerable height. It was a weakness. And in that moment, Zim knew it was a weakness that might just kill him. As he sat in the pile of rubbish, his spider legs pinned around him, ready to deploy him upwards to avoid another attack, Gir's ugly red eyes faded to a warm, friendly cyan. He started tiptoeing his way around various piles of debris, singing to himself as if nothing had ever happened.

Zim came down in a relentless bout of coughing. His spider legs re-aligned themselves with his PAK's ports, and slipped back inside. Once more, Irken blood sullied the floor in copious amounts. It wasn't as bad as he suspected it might, for he hadn't lost his arm. It was just a deep cut, but the muscle had no doubt been ripped.

"You got sauce all down yerself again!" Gir commented delightfully. Zim shivered in nervous apprehension as he struggled to get through the coughs. When would be 'switch' again? Was it because he had manually tried to override him? Or would he have switched anyway, regardless of the Irken's ministrations?

 _I could lock him in a cage._ He thought. For there was no way he was going to try and turn Gir offline for a while.

Right now though, he wanted to be alone. He wanted to be as far away from Gir as possible.

"Gir, stop right where you are. Come no closer."

Gir stopped on the instant, looking confused. He was ten feet away from Zim. "Don't be sad." The robot said. "I get sauce on myself too sometimes."

Zim shakily stood, trying to clear his throat. After passing up a few more coughs, he felt that he could breathe a little easier. "I'm going to rest now. Go watch TV or something. And don't follow me."

"Yay! TV!" And Gir rushed past him to get to the elevator. As Gir passed by, Zim recoiled, expecting another attack. But in the next moment, Gir was riding the elevator back to the top. And Zim exhaled in heavy relief.

xxx

Like a defeated soldier coming back from the battlefield, Zim retreated to his resting chamber. It was built much like a cocoon, for it was layered to protect him from nuclear fallout, and its doors were reinforced with lock-down technology. It was in short, his panic room. Inside was his own food pantry, and medi-unit. It was also the warmest chamber in his entire base and had its own oxygen supply by way of a portable apparatus with self-fulfilling oxygen tanks. This was where he felt safest, and he often came here if he was sick, or frightened.

The walls were a warm, rosy pink, and the main bed that was placed to one side was an incubation pod. It had steep sides, and a warm, cushiony soft centre. Each end narrowed off like a banana.

Slipping out of his uniform, he plodded around the little room, naked. He came to a mirror and started to peel off the heavy gauzing around his middle. Once it was unwrapped, he was spooked to find that it hadn't healed very well at all. In spite of everything his belly was still very swollen as if his spooch was badly inflamed, and the puncture wound itself was still weeping.

He brushed a claw over it lightly. There was pain, but not a lot. Mostly it was just numb. This irked him, for being a proud creature; he was rather fastidious when it came to his appearance. He kept the padding on his eye however, and turned to the medi-unit on the far wall to access special gel. This gel he liberally applied on his damaged arm and his left side. It was meant to encourage natural healing, and act as a salve.

Finally he dressed into his light pink thermals which doubled as pyjamas and happily slipped into his incubation pod. The instant warmth was beautiful, and instantly mollified the pain in his joints, or anywhere else for that matter. It even made his breathing easier.

Lifting the electric-heater blanket that Dib had given him, he curled under it and attempted to sleep. In his doorway, he had deployed full lock-down. Not only was the entryway blocked by three titanium doors some eight inches thick, but there was also a laser wall behind all three. There was no way Gir could get in. Even so, he lay there, trembling in worry despite the wonderful heat bathing his frail body.

Eventually however, exhaustion won, and he slipped unknowingly into dreams. Every so often he twitched and turned, safe in his cocoon-like bed. So far gone in sleep, that he did not hear the computer notifying him of the doorbell, and later, of the phone ringing. His mind was down the pathway of dreams, and close behind him were nightmares.

* * *

 **Dib07:** I was going to start updating every other week because I have been busy lately, but because of the support I am receiving I will continue my very best to make sure I update every single week! Of course, there may be times where I can't update as regularly, but in the meantime I am going to try. And this is all due to the support I have been receiving from you all.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Zim kinda flowed with me on this one. And there was no Dib in this chapter! I'm sorry! Anyways, please let me know what you think! I'd love to hear from you! Reviews are always welcomed! And Zim could do with a hug! I'm too busy to hug him right now! So please feel welcome!


	7. A Night Out

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **A/N:**

You'll have to excuse me for any minor changes! I am tidying up the few chapters I can get round to, and adding some extra tiny bits I had earlier removed.

When you get here **Piratemonkies64,** this chapter (even though it's an old chapter, and holds nothing special) is dedicated to you, as will many, many more! Have an awesome day!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 7: A Night Out**

The little Irken blinked, opening his eyes when he felt a presence. He turned, thinking it to be the Dib worm. He did not know why his mind first thought of him. It was stupid. But when he looked, he shrunk back and screamed, his head hitting the wall in his violence to get away. Gir was standing silently by the incubation pod, his eyes a fearsome blood red.

He flung out a flustered screech of terror as he sat up, his good eye wide as he looked here and there for Gir. He had kicked his heater blanket away from his legs and he scanned the room several times.

There was no robot.

There was no Gir.

Doubling over with coughs, Zim tried to breathe easy. The room was just as he had left it. Everything was still sealed – the doors were all in lock-down, and the laser wall was fully operational. He was alone. It had just been a nightmare, one of many.

"Master," the computer spoke from above, its words issuing from an intercom system not unlike what the humans used, "you have two missed calls, and one recorded message. One proximity alert went off when a human used the doorbell. But then they vacated the vicinity."

"Anything else?" Zim asked as he sat in his incubator, still feeling dazed from his nightmare. Had Gir annihilated the rest of his base? Would he step out of his resting chamber, only to be confronted by burning rubble?

"No, Master. The Tallest haven't called, and nothing else has transpired. The base hasn't been breached and all systems are operational."

"And what of Gir? My S.I.R unit? Where is he located?"

"In the front living room, watching the TV."

"And what of my delivery from the Tallest? What is its status?"

"Currently enroute. Expect it within twelve hours."

Zim nodded. He had to survive twelve more hours. He could do that.

He made his way out of the incubator. Thanks to the gel he had applied last night, his arm's damaged tissue was mending. The outside flesh had more or less fused together, but the muscle and sinew was still being repaired. As for his eye, he decided to keep the padding on.

His belly would just have to remain looking... swollen. He had too many other things to worry about right now.

He removed his warm thermal wear and slipped on a fresh uniform. Then after he was done eating a sandwich for breakfast he decided to risk leaving his resting chamber. There was no way he was cowering in it for the next twelve hours. He was an invader, and he had to keep reminding himself of this. He could not let a single S.I.R unit ruin his day. Besides, he had no idea what time it was, and how long he had slept for.

Taking the elevator, or what he liked to call 'the conduit,' he rose to the top floor and emerged out into the kitchen. On the clock on the wall it read eight thirty in the morning. He had slept all afternoon and all night. It had been the longest he had ever slept.

Just as promised, Gir was indeed watching TV: the Scary Monkey show to be exact. They were currently airing their 18th season of the show. Why humans watched such toddle he would never know. But Gir loved it. In his lap he was eating nachos and licking the crumbs off his hands. When Zim entered, he looked over and grinned widely. "Hiya there. Yous wanna watch wit' me?"

"No, Gir. I have things that need doing. Who called?" He asked croakily.

"Mary called!"

"Mary?"

"You know. That one with the big head."

The lounge was a mess from the night before. Ripped plaster hung in tatters, and some of the couch was ripped. It looked like a bulldozer had paid them a visit.

Zim, keeping one eye on his S.I.R unit, walked over to the phone and picked up the receiver. ' _You have one new message_.' Said the automated response. He hit the 'play' button to listen to the message and turned up the volume. He had never been very good hearing the words spoken through the line.

Dib's husky voice could suddenly be heard through the speaker in the phone. "Hey there, Zim. I came over earlier today to introduce you to a very special someone. I know you don't like anyone 'strange' near your base, so I decided to talk to you about it first, but you weren't there I guess. Out walking Gir again? Or are you busy planning the end of the world?" There was a pause. Zim waited. "You there, Zim? Come on. You never miss a phone call. Well, I guess it is ten o'clock and it is pretty dark out. Well, call me back later, will you? Her name's Clara by the way, and I think you'll like her. Well, bye."

' _End of message_.' Intoned the robotic voice speaker. ' _You have no new messages_.'

He placed the phone back down on its receiver.

 _So Dib's finally found a partner._

Dib was growing up – or rather - had already grown up. And he had achieved it all, in the blink of an eye. Zim missed the old Dib, he supposed. But then, this new man who looked like Dib, and smelled like Dib, was okay too. Ten years ago, and Dib wouldn't have 'rescued' him from his base and taken care of his grave injury. Ten years ago, and Zim was still openly at war with him.

Things have changed so soon, behind their backs, and now everything was upside down.

And now Dib had a 'girl' 'friend.' Soon he'd be off, reproducing, and adding to the vast number of humans on this rotten planet. He'd be a father. And he'd leave Zim behind. After all, what place did he have, an alien, when Dib had little children to look after and protect?

It made him feel angry.

It made him want to break something.

 _I should have destroyed this planet a long, long time ago. Then none of this would matter!_

Then he looked over at Gir, and felt like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

 _Tell Dib. Tell him about Gir. Before something else happens. Before he goes and reproduces._

"No!" He angrily spat, arguing with his own thoughts. _No!_ He couldn't. Dib may be unpredictable too, and dismantle or even disable Gir. There was a chance the human might not even care, or even believe Zim. But, BUT there was a high chance of Dib destroying Gir to save Zim. And living a life without that foolish robot wasn't even worth thinking about. Besides, it was Zim's problem alone. He was the alien, and it was his robot that was causing the trouble.

Besides which, what if Gir killed Dib?

Ha ha! He should think. So what? One less human to cache into the dungeon. One less obstacle in his way. One less fool to look upon.

If only that were so.

He and Dib were at odds yes, but he also liked to believe they were allies on some level. If Dib wanted Zim captured, he could have done it a hundred times by now. And if he had wanted Dib dead, he could have done that a hundred times. And then of course, there was that accursed promise that bound them utterly because of that wire.

So, Zim didn't want any tragic accidents or deaths either way. If he was the one to lose, then he would accept it, so long as Gir or Dib did not get hurt. So Gir's episodes had to remain a secret.

Then Dib could go on, and spawn as many children as he bloody well liked.

As for Gir, he needed to devise a cage until the delivery of the special parts arrived. But instructing Gir to do anything might trigger him to go berserk.

"You want some coffee, Gir?" He asked, for now wanting to be platonic. Even the Irken himself needed a little 'pick me up' from his long sleep.

"Oooh I'd love a coffee!" He said, barely pausing from his nacho-munching. On the TV screen, the Scary Monkey was swinging from some handle bars, snarling at the viewer.

Zim roamed about in the kitchen, trying to come up with ideas for this possible cage-in-the-making while hashing up some coffee. In the middle of his preparations, the computer alerted him when the proximity alarm went off.

"Probably that infernal postman AGAIN!" The invader yelled. "I told him to stop spamming junk mail through MY letterbox! I don't want Earth trash!"

He stormed to the door, throwing on his disguise in haste. He could only fit on one eye contact, for his damaged Irken eye was still covered in padding.

He got to the door and threw it open using his good hand in his usual angry manner. "Yes?" He barked. Then he blanched. Dib was waving warmly at him on Zim's porch, wearing a thin, apologetic smile. Beside him was a complete stranger. She smelled different, and he at once disliked the smell. Her hair was long and brown, and her eyes were a glistening amber, much like the Dib's. She was wearing a fluffy winter coat and boots, and her smile too was uncertain.

"Urm, hi there, Zim." Dib began, looking far more nervous than he ever usually did when he and Zim were together. "You didn't answer my call. I hope this is okay. I wanted to introduce you to Clara. Did... did you have another accident again? You... you look a bit..."

"Befuddled. I know." Zim answered for him. He stepped out into the wintry sunlight and pulled the door almost to a close behind him to hide the mess of the lounge. Then he eyed up Clare with military precision. He reminded himself that he had to be polite, if this was indeed Dib's future mate, so he put on a smile. It came out like a pained grimace. He also hid his bad arm at his back. He didn't want to be caught out, and he couldn't afford Dib's suspicion. The Dib human wasn't all that dumb and he would try to guess. Try to know. And Zim hated nosy humans.

Remembering human custom, he put out his good hand for her to shake. He tried not to recoil too much when she took his hand in hers and shook. "I'm Zim. Dib's _very_ human friend. Because we're so _very_ normal."

"So glad to meet you! I'm Clara. Dib's told me a lot about you."

"Ah yes." They parted hands, and Zim wiped the hand she had touched against his uniform as if Clara harboured a deadly disease. He looked to Dib. "So, you have finally chosen a mate for reproduction. Tell me, how long does it take for a human worm baby to gestate?"

Dib visibly paled as if he had just been stabbed from behind. Zim grimaced worriedly, wondering what on Irk he could have said wrong. Then Dib nervously began to chuckle. "Zim likes to joke," he said to Clara as she looked on, evidently confused, "he's not from around here, so his humour is quite... strange."

On cue: "Where are you from, Zim?" She asked.

He grew a little nervous. He hated it when he had to think fast. "Um! England! Yes! They're um... crazy over there! And very normal. Yes. I am Englandish."

Luckily that seemed to pull a funny cord with Clara, for she started laughing. Zim watched on, terribly nervous. He always was nervous around anyone who wasn't Dib. But he started laughing too, not sure exactly what was so funny.

"Oh Zim. Always with the jokes." Dib said. "So yeah, Clara and I are... going out. Together. It's only thanks to you, Zim. You gave me the confidence the other night. So I rang her up and we just started talking. Then we found out how much we had in common."

"So, no babies yet?" Zim asked innocently enough.

Dib was so tempted to slap gaffer tape over his mouth. "Babies, Zim? No, gosh no! What is it with you and babies? Anyway, we're going out tonight to the Rooster. You wanna come along?"

Dib looked sure to have him. Meanwhile, Clara looked between them, looking nervous yet somehow happy.

The Irken pondered, frowning. If Dib wanted to mate, why bring him along? Copulation was purely a private affair, unless Dib was just nervous, and wanted to have a friend along to soften the anxiety.

But Zim wasn't sure. Leaving Gir alone too long, unsupervised was just plain mad. And he had a messy lounge to clean, if his joints could handle it.

"When is this... copulation ceremony at the Rooster?"

"Zim!" Dib winced this time, looking hotly embarrassed. A flush was even starting to rise in his cheeks. "It's just a dinner! A nice, friendly dinner! So we can get to know each other better!" Then he discreetly mouthed the words to Zim: ' _stop embarrassing me!'_

Zim lightly coughed, feeling awkward. "Is it tonight?"

"Yeah. At nine o'clock. I can come and pick you up."

The alien was once again thrown back. Why did Dib even want him around?

Humans, he decided, were overly complicated creatures when it came to sexual rituals. "Very well. I shall try to be available. I'm sure this Clara... will enjoy our company very... very much!"

Now Dib was grimacing as he smiled. "Well, take care Zim. And please stop having accidents." He added, charting up Zim's latest eye injury to another innocent mishap. Then they did a little wave and headed back down the path to the main sidewalk.

"Yes yes. Off with you." Zim waved them off, walked back inside, closed the door and tore off his disguise.

 _Humans! Now, where's my coffee?_

-x-

Zim however, grew heavily reluctant to leave when nine o'clock fast approached. He didn't like leaving his base at the best of times for 'social gatherings.' Irkens did not have social gatherings, unless the elders gathered them together for a strategic plan or some opening ceremony before or after a war/operation. Irkens did not socialize or 'become' friends with one another. So when Dib invited him to this evening dinner with a complete stranger, he detested agreeing to it. It reminded him of that prom night in high school not long before he quit. He and Dib just stood at the boundary of the event all night, looking terribly out of place. It had been one of the longest nights Zim had ever suffered.

He removed the bandage over his eye, oiled it with special Vortian lotion, and slipped his human contacts into place, along with fitting his wig over the top of his antennae. The lotion stung, and he blinked viciously, trying to endure the discomfort. At least his eye was healing, unlike the wound in his side that still needed treating. He could be done with it and cauterize the wound as standard, but he wasn't sure how much internal damage was still healing, and he didn't want to block up anything in case he developed an infection.

His arm he experimentally flapped up and down, and the actions did not invite any undue pain.

He was pleased with his quick recovery.

Before long, at exactly nine o'clock, Zim heard a car beeping its horn outside. He flung his arms into his coat and slipped a scarf around his little neck. Gir looked up from the ripped couch, wearing his doggy uniform, even though Zim hadn't given him the order to wear it. For some reason, Gir looked less menacing in that doggy suit. Opposite him, the TV flashed the latest news headlines. "You goin' out? Can I come?" He asked sweetly.

"No, Gir. It's just a stupid little... gathering. For Dib and his selected mate. Irk knows why he wants me, ZIM! To come along! But I suppose I'll just humour him, and learn more about this... copulation process. Who knows? Maybe he wants me along so he can keep an eye on me. Well, so long Gir. And don't do anything stupid."

"All right!"

Zim opened the door. It was particularly gusty out, and he had to keep a hand on his wig to keep it from flying off in the wind. The car was waiting for him. It was Dib's blue car with the black trim.

Already he could see the two humans sitting up at the front. When they caught eyes, Clara waved up a hand to him. Zim saluted back.

The drive was quite short and uneventful. Zim sat at the back, his seatbelt strapped almost across his face due to his littleness. When they arrived, Dib parked and then they walked on over to the Rooster. It was dark and still windy, but inside the bar it was warm and brightly lit. The booths were reasonably empty, and Zim chose the one nearest the back where he could sit next to the window. The whole time, Zim kept a suspicious eye on the human pair, wondering what they were up to, and what his possible involvement could mean. He relaxed slightly however when he saw just how nervous the Dib was. He stuttered when he spoke, which he never normally did, and his skin looked clammy with sweat. He was very clumsy too, often spilling his diet poop and dropping the menu several times. It seemed to Zim that the more Dib interacted with Clara, the more he stumbled with his words and the clumsier he became. If this was 'love,' than Zim was pretty sure he was lucky not to suffer such an affliction.

He sipped a little of his tea, and listened to the humans talk trivialities. Whenever Clara's attention fell on him and asked questions about his life, he felt like he was dodging bullets with her. He pretended that he was an unemployed wormbaby, looking for work in the shambles of human society. When she asked him if he had any family, he said yes, he had his two parents who lived with him.

"So, what are your hobbies?" Was Clara's latest hurdle for him to overcome.

"Hobbies?" He returned nervously, swallowing hard.

"Yes. What are you good at?"

"Urm. Designing stuff for... stuff! You know! Like... um, nuclear weapons to help with... the human crisis?"

"Oh!" All evening she had looked perturbed whenever he answered one of her questions. Dib didn't look that concerned. He just shrugged at him. It irked Zim a little. But then, he knew by now not to rely on Dib. Humans did not help aliens, and vice versa.

"Yeah. I'm a sponsor for... world peace!" He ended at last, trying to dig himself out of the corner he had ended up in.

"Neat! I always think what the government is doing is pretty crazy. We need more people like you to give the people a voice. Well done!" Clara said. Now it was Zim's turn to look perturbed. But in the end, he gave her one of his worried smiles, hoping she'd swing her attention back to Dib. Instead, she excused herself and went to the restroom.

While she was gone, Dib leaned forwards across the table and said, "So? What do you think of her?"

"Well, is she applicable?"

Dib had to look at him twice. "Applicable? What does that mean?"

"You know... appropriate for your... needs?"

"Zim, she's not livestock. She's a human being. And I love her."

There was that word again.

Love.

Zim couldn't get his head round it. Was it something you suffered from? Something you felt? Something that hurt? Once, long, long ago, he had loved once, or thought he had loved. It was maternal love, for a parent that didn't exist. As soon as he was brought into existence, he had wanted to love. He had wanted to be coddled, for that Irken instinct remained despite their programmed way of life. Then he quickly realized that he had no parents, had no family and never would. From then on he had hardened himself, or else be consumed with loneliness.

"That's your problem, Zim. You don't care about anyone. So of course you wouldn't understand." Dib continued as he ran a finger down the glass of his diet poop, creating a mark in the condensation.

Zim sneered at him crossly. "I do! I care about Gir!"

"It's not the same thing. Besides, he's a robot. He isn't real!"

Just as he was about to retaliate with a reply, Clara came back. Zim decided to drop the argument. He had forgotten what it was he had wanted to say, or what they were even arguing about. Then, just before their meal arrived, Dib decided that they should make a toast. "To the future!" Dib said, and Clara clinked glasses with him. Zim observed their ritual, and added his glass to the toast, even if he found this whole ceremony to be idiotic and senseless.

Their main meals arrived.

Zim had ordered dessert and a large cup of coffee as his main. He had eaten human ice cream before, and its frozen composition didn't give him an allergic reaction. Probably because there were less toxins and bacteria in it than most other human foods.

Clara found it amusing that he had ordered a dessert and not a hot meal for his main course. "Why did you order that, Zim? Didn't like what was on the menu?"

Zim paused, the spoon filled with cream and cherries half way to his mouth. He lowered it, looking stricken with guilt as if he had just been caught stealing. "I... I already ate!" Was the only lame excuse he could come up with. He was getting really tired of this inquisition lately.

Clara looked baffled. "But you knew you were coming out to eat with us."

"Um, yeah. Urm." He was running out of ammunition. It wasn't long before he cracked, and said something to her that would upset her, or worse, reveal his true identity.

But this time, Dib bailed him out. "He doesn't eat all that much. I know I don't. Besides, I think having dessert instead of a main isn't a bad idea."

Zim sighed in relief which caused some coughing and he started tucking into his ice-cream sundae. Clara was eating some fish food concoction that smelt awful, and Dib was snacking on a burger and fries. When he was half way through his sundae, he noticed that the table had begun to rock from side to side. The conversations he could hear from Clara and Dib sounded muffled, and distant, as if he was trapped behind a glass wall. He looked up, suspecting that something was wrong. When he did, he suddenly felt light-headed and dizzy. The voices continued to sound distorted and muffled.

 _Must be feeling a little... ill._ He thought, rationalizing this sensation because he had eaten too much ice cream. So he tried to push through it, thinking it would pass. But the table continued to tilt, making him feel like he was drifting through space in his Voot without its stabilisers engaged.

Even Dib was looking at him funny.

The sensation did not alleviate itself, and Zim felt panic rise in his heart. Instantly he wanted to be alone, wanted to hide any weakness before it showed itself.

"Um, need to use the toilet or whatever. Bye!" And he slipped down from the booth and hurried towards the far reception area where there were restroom doors symbolising different genders. He pushed through the door that was labelled 'MEN.'

"Unusual friend you have." Clara spoke up, chewing on the last of her salad. "Can I ask a question?"

"Sure, go ahead." He wiped his lips on the napkin provided.

"Why does he have green skin? And how come he's so... small? Is he a dwarf?"

 _He's an alien._ He wanted to say so badly. And maybe she'd believe him. And maybe she wouldn't. Regardless, he didn't want their studies of the paranormal to get between them. He wanted to keep work separate. After all he didn't want his childhood days of being called 'crazy' to come back to haunt him. This was his new life now and he couldn't afford to fuck it up again. He didn't want to be alone all his life. He wanted a family. And Zim could be a part of it, or he could keep to himself. Because Zim didn't matter anymore.

"He just has this skin condition," he heard himself say on autopilot, "had it since we went to school together. And yeah, as for his size, I suppose he's got some stunted growth issues."

"Is he... sick?"

"No. Why? He just has a cough."

She pushed her plate away – much of it had been eaten, and she sipped delicately from her wine. Dib tried not to keep staring at her. Her wrists were so small and sweet, and she was beautiful in that skimpy black dress. She wore red lipstick that went well with black too. Her hair had been curled into bunches, and her eyelashes were long and elegant. Being with Zim made him less nervous, but he was still a stuttering wreck. He felt a little guilty, bringing Zim out with them just so that he wouldn't be all alone with her, but so far the evening was going well. One day he'd have the confidence to go out with her, just the two of them. Just, not today.

"Shall we order coffee? I don't really fancy a dessert." She said, looking over towards Zim's melting sundae.

"Me neither. Yeah, let's go for coffee." They ordered when the waiter returned to take away their plates, and Dib ordered Zim another coffee, since he wasn't there to order. When the waiter scurried away again, Dib pulled back his chair and left the table. "I'd better head on over to the restroom as well. That diet poop went straight through me."

-x-

The floor continued to sway, and Zim sensed that he was losing his balance. It felt like he was on a wobbly bridge held together with nothing but fraying rope.

Eventually he made it to the toilet stall and shut the cubicle door behind him, flipping the latch as he did so.

His little legs were shaking.

 _I've... I've been poisoned! By the Dib! I must have! Why else am I like this?_

He didn't want to sit down anywhere – even though the toilet seat and stall were relatively clean – he still saw it as filthy. But, in the end, weakness overcame him, and he squatted down on the toilet stall floor, woozy and faint. He brought up a hand to his mouth as he coughed and coughed. His chest burned with each one.

 _Must be a cold, perhaps. A human cold. I feel... strangely hot... and then cold. What's happening to me?_

This was the last thing he needed.

He cursed quietly, hugging his arms to his chest. He wanted to be home, all snuggled and in the warm.

He was just about to rest his head on his knees when the main door to the restroom clicked open. Zim froze, trying to listen with his cramped antennae beneath his wig. He stiffened upright, eyes wide.

Dib entered the restroom, finding it surprisingly empty and quiet. No one else seemed to be here. He liked it that way. So he quickly relieved himself at the urinal, noticing in the mirror in front of him that one of the toilet cubicle doors was closed.

After relieving himself, he did up his fly and washed his hands. Then, against his better judgement, he peered beneath the cubicle door to see a familiar pair of black boots and Zim's lower half as he sat on the floor besides the toilet.

Dib straightened again, confronting the closed cubicle. He was puzzled. What was Zim up to? Dib knew how much of a germaphobe the Irken was. And he was in there, sitting on the dirty restroom floor like a drunk.

"Zim?" He asked softly. "It's me. You okay in there?" It was an honest enough question and Zim did not need to know that he had peered under the gap to see what he was doing. After all, it was not hard to decipher that it was just Zim in there, with the rest of the room being empty.

There was a shuffling of feet and a string of incomprehensible curses: most likely in Irken. Then the words spluttered into intelligible English. "Oh yes, Zim is perfectly fine. Why wouldn't I be? I was just... eh... urinating! Is that what you humans call it when you mitigate your water?"

Dib heard him flushing the toilet. Just as he opened the cubicle door, the human had moved back to the sinks to assess the state of his hair.

A tide of feverish dizziness stalled Zim, and he hesitated for a moment before strengthening his resolve and coming over to his human. He did not wash his hands, which was just as well, because the sinks were too high for him to reach. Instead he produced his own Irken soap, more aptly called 'cleansing chalk.' He started rubbing his hands all over it.

"You look... pale." Dib noticed, giving him a brief look.

"And you look white. So what?"

"I'm so nervous, Zim. Clara's beautiful. Don't you think?"

"She's as filthy as the rest of them."

Dib smiled at this crude, predicable remark. He judged himself in the mirror, hoping to find himself attractive, and maybe a little cool. In truth, he just looked terrified. There was nothing out of place. His hair was styled just the way he liked it, and there wasn't any food crumbs on his face. But to him he still didn't look good enough. Was this what every guy thought when he was dating for the first time? Did they doubt? Or did they just go with the flow, and see what came next without fear?

"If you chose a mate, Zim, hypothetically speaking, what would you look for? What would you find attractive?"

Zim just looked up at him condescendingly as if the human had suddenly dropped in his brain cell count. "Again, this is where we differ, Dib worm. You... eh... monkeys are a lot more selective, fussy and emotional when it comes to making... more monkeys."

"Come on, Zim. There must have been a time when your ancestors must have mated much like we did. Before technology and space travel. Before anything. Don't you get aroused, Zim? Ever?" He felt sorry for him in a way. Without any excitement, be it sexual or erotic stimulus, life must be so bland for the Irken.

Zim looked around, suddenly paranoid that they were discussing his Irken heritage in the men's bathroom no less. But there was no one else there. Dib picked up on this, and suddenly didn't want to lose the conversation. Zim liked to keep everything knowledgeable on himself and his race a secret. Sometimes he could be tricked into giving trivialities clean away, and on some days getting even the tiniest bit of information out of him was like trying to get blood out of a stone.

"We were clubbing each other to death, just for some food." Dib continued, thinking that debauching his race some might get Zim to open up. Using his pride against him came easy sometimes. And useful. "We were savages back then. Hell, you might even argue that we still are savages."

"Well," Zim began, replacing the cleansing chalk back into his little side pocket, "in the days of old, as the records go, we males used to fight each other to the death over a mate. Any mate. And whoever won, won the female. Of course, we had wings back then. Even then, Dib human, no romance was ever involved. We just bred instinctively. But we did pair for life. For mutual benefit and all that."

This information did open up a lot of interest, but he came back to his earlier question. "But if you had the choice! Jeez, Zim! You're not very imaginative!"

"Well, I suppose I'd..." Dib glanced down at him, impressed that Zim was actually thinking about it, or trying to, given his cold, mathematical nature. "Um. The length of her antennas. And her height. Yes."

Dib giggled and nudged his shoulder playfully. It wasn't exactly the charming answer he was looking for, but at least the Irken had tried. After all, his likes and dislikes, coupled with instinct, were much more different to his own.

"And your species once had wings? That's amazing! What happened? Why'd you lose them?" He queried, his hapless boyish curiosity coming to light.

"Yeah. That's enough information for now, Earth boy. Give you any more and you'll use it against me."

"I sure would, space monster." Dib teased.

They headed back out and returned to their booth. Their coffee had arrived. Zim was surprised into silence when he learned that Dib had ordered for him while he had been away. This charitable act of kindness sickened him, yet pleased him at the same time. Irkens had never had anything to do with kindness, and Zim struggled to understand its concept since arriving on Earth. Gir had been the first to show him kindness, even if that supposed emotion from a robot was false. Now Dib was showing him more kindness than he cared for. Kindness was a weakness. It made you soft, and sappy. At least, that was what he was certain of. For why else did his race avoid it so terribly?

Zim drank down the coffee. And it did quell his shakes.

For the rest of the evening, everything else went well. And for just one moment, Zim forgot about his tribulations with Gir.


	8. That Sinking Feeling

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I think this is the last chapter before it all gets kinda... mad. Lol. I don't know how else to say it.

Thanks so much for the support. Really. I couldn't have got this far without you awesome readers. I know I say that every time, but I had no intention of submitting the whole deal of 'Saving Zim.' And I've been having some really fun and memorable conversations with some of you. Thanks for that! :)

A special thanks to all those who reviewed last week: Piratemonkies64, Invader Johnny, TheCandyCravingDemon, oliviikate, JustBeStill, Sin Hogar, ElaEnchanted21, Barely Existent, cara9001, and Rocky Rooster!

So without further ado, here's the next chapter.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 8: That Sinking Feeling**

"How about we play some Blackjack?" Was the next thing Dib suggested. He even went to go so far as to pull the deck out of his pocket.

"No, no not that horrible game." Zim quipped immediately, "Not even those dirty Vortians play with... uh..." He stopped, realizing they had company. "Uh... I mean... Vort hates that game! Yes! My other friend Vort!"

Clara shook her head at Dib's offer as well. "I do love card games," she said, "but I've had way too much wine!"

"That's okay," Dib said, smiling, "maybe I should have some wine too."

Even though they were sitting opposite each other, Zim still managed to reach his foot to stamp on it. "You're driving, pig smell!"

"Oh... oh yeah!" Dib just grinned apologetically, rubbing his sore toe against the back of his calf.

"So, you two were old classmates?" Clara asked, looking at them both with amusement. She had been smiling pretty much all evening, laughing at Zim's stupid jokes and reaching out to touch Dib's hand whenever they shared a moment. She was absorbed into their very different personalities as if she had never met such diverse friends.

"Oh yeah. We hated each other, didn't we, Zim?"

"We still do, don't we?" Zim asked, which caused Clara to giggle. The human-disguised Irken looked to Dib, missing the old life; missing the games and battles they used to have daily. He sometimes wished he could turn back time, just so they could be at each other's throats again, as much as he liked the older Dib now.

"Remember Mrs. Rullen's biology class in high school?" Dib began, holding his hot coffee with both hands, "And the shit we used to get up to?"

"Oh yes. Bio-lodgey." Zim rested his chin on his gloved claws. "I hated you _so_ much on that day."

x

 _Mrs. Rullen, an older woman with a pouty face and dirty blonde hair, walked around the classroom carrying a grubby cardboard box. Everything in the school was grubby in one way or another._

" _Class, today we are going to briefly go over the human body in this lesson. As always you are to take this lesson seriously, for even an idiot should know basic human anatomy. Clive, sit down please, you'll be given a pen later!"_

 _Zim chuckled to himself as he flicked through a human anatomy book. "Humans have waaaay too many organs! It's so stupid!"_

 _Before each child was a page containing the customary questions. As the teacher came round, she started ordering them into pairs. Zim and Dib, sitting on opposite sides of the room from each other, groaned simultaneously. And in the next few minutes as kids shuffled around the room to change places, they watched as they became the only two pupils yet to pair up._

 _Dib rolled his eyes, expecting the inevitable. No one ever chose him to join their little group, and if they ever had to pair up, he was always stuck with the alien. And if he refused to co-operate, he either got a detention or a letter home apologizing to his father that he could not work responsibly in a 'team-building exercise.'_

 _Mrs. Rullen came over to Dib. "You, go and join Zim this instant. I don't have all day."_

" _Yes, Mrs. Rullen," he drawled, pushing back on his chair, grabbing his sheet of paper and walking over as slowly as he could to Zim's desk. Snatching up a chair, he sat down next to him, looking as sullen as he possibly could._

" _Now, class, today we are going to be learning all about stethoscopes." And as the teacher came to each desk, she dropped down two stethoscopes, two to each pair. The kids grabbed at them, and started to play with the tubing and ear pieces as if they were exotic toys._

 _When she dumped them on their desk, Dib only groaned harder. He did not want to be a part of this lesson at all._

 _Zim grabbed his stethoscope and proceeded to test the strength of the plastic tubing with his teeth before pulling away at how foul it tasted._

 _Checking to make sure everyone had an instrument; Mrs. Rullen put away the box and stood at the front of the class. "Now, who among you knows what this is used for?" And a forest of hands went up, all begging to be chosen._

 _Dib did not participate. He sat, listless and despondent while Zim sniffed at the ear pieces before making another grimace of disgust._

" _Yes, uh, Mackey." She said after selecting a pupil._

" _Listening to the heart?"_

" _Very good. But that's not all it's used for. Can anyone else tell me what else I can use it for?"_

 _Another sea of hands went up, just as eager as before. Even Zim put his hand up this time, ignoring the dark looks Dib was throwing him._

" _Yes Zim?"_

 _Zim smiled triumphantly as if his answer was the answer to all answers. "To dive down into one's guts and suck out their insides?"_

 _There followed a stiff silence, broken by the occasional kid giggling._

 _Mrs. Rullen shook her head. "No! That's not what it does at all. Anyone else? Yes, Clive."_

" _To listen to the stomach?"_

 _These questions and answers went on for several more minutes until Mrs. Rullen thought they understood enough to apply the things. "Now class, working in your chosen pairs, I want you to listen to each other's hearts, and write down what you find out. The test questions are on your paper. You have until the clock hits twelve."_

 _Dib eyed Zim darkly. "Don't you touch me." He said while everyone else started to have fun with their instruments._

" _Why? Worried that I might kill you with it?" Zim muttered, looking pleased with himself. He was swinging the stethoscope round in his claws as if it was a lasso._

" _You don't even have a heart in there, so this entire lesson is pointless." He continued, folding his arms in front of his chest. "When I looked inside your body using my X-ray vision goggles you just had a... a giant... ugly... squibbly spooch!"_

 _Zim scowled, not liking the fact that Dib had learned to look inside his body unknowingly. "And what do you have? You humans have about a thousand organs all jammed up in there! When I removed one or two organs when we had Ms. Bitters, you snotty children just collapsed: defeated!"_

 _The teacher slapped her ruler on the desk between them, causing them both to jump. "Is there something wrong with your instruments?" She asked, sneering down at them, "Well? Use them!" She gave them one more baleful glare before making her way around the other desks. As Dib watched, everyone else was enjoying their stethoscopes and laughing._

 _Zim eyed him apprehensively when Dib turned back to him._

" _Just swallow the... stethie-thing, before she comes back." The alien exclaimed without the accustomed bitterness._

 _Dib just slotted in the ear-pieces and held out the disk. "Let's just get it over with before she comes back. I can't do with another letter to my dad. Especially during biology. To him it's as close to science as I'll ever get."_

" _Why don't we just kill each other and be done with it?"_

" _I have lunch. And it's a good lunch. I want to be alive so I can enjoy it. Now let me listen so I'll know exactly where to stab you."_

 _Zim scowled again. "If you ever have any babies, Dib worm, I'm going to eat them."_

" _Whatever. Quick, she's coming back!"_

 _With both instruments hooked up, they aimed the disks as if they were trying to blast each other with invisible bullets. They strained to get closer, and yet strained to get away. Zim found the whole thing disgusting, whereas Dib was more eager to utilize the stethoscope so that he could learn more about his enemy's organs. In the end though, they both spent so long avoiding each other, that the lesson ended, and they hadn't even filled in their questions._

 _While Mrs. Rullen sat at the desk, writing letters showcasing her disappointment to each of their parents, Dib was adamant that he didn't deserve the punishment. "He... he doesn't even have a heart! How could I even do the lesson if he's not even a human?"_

 _She didn't even look up at him as she continued to note down her criticism addressed to Prof. Membrane. "I don't even know why I'm listening to this, young man. Every student who gets admitted to this school has to go through a preliminary health check before admittance. Your friend had a very healthy, and somewhat fast heart rate. So your argument is invalid. You just didn't want to work with him."_

" _Let me see those medical files! They've been tampered with! They must have been!"_

" _No, Dib. No child is allowed to see those files, because they are confidential. Now take this letter and give it to you father. Thank you."_

x

"My word! That's so funny!" And Clara started laughing. Dib believed that it was mostly due to the wine. He hadn't left anything out, and neither had Zim. The fact that Zim's biology might be very different was totally lost on her.

"Before... before the uh..." Dib motioned at his head, referring to Zim's antenna, "...we had some pretty good times, huh? I miss being a kid."

"I miss trying to kill you." Zim informed casually, still resting his chin on his claws. Part of him: the old soldier part of him: meant it.

Clara burst into hard laughter again, causing them all to break into happy chuckles. Some people looked over, but most continued drinking or eating. At last, wiping her teary eyes and smudging some of her mascara, she turned to Zim. "That was really mean of Dib, to accuse you of those things."

"Oh yes." He agreed happily, nodding his head. "The little worm accused me of a lot of things."

She then said sweetly, "This has been such fun! We've got to do this again some time!" She reached out and took Dib's hand in hers.

Dib, who was in the middle of drinking down his coffee instantly choked on it.

xxx

The drive back home was uneventful. Clara got dropped off first, as she lived nearest to the Rooster, then Dib turned towards Maple Street. There was a string of traffic, and so the ride home was longer than anticipated.

Dib turned the radio on. "Hey Zim. What kind of music do you fancy? If you're into any kind of music that is."

He got no reply. He wondered if he had not spoken loud enough, for sometimes Zim misheard him due to his deafness. He turned while they were stopped in traffic to see that Zim had fallen asleep beside him on the front passenger seat.

He turned back to the road, and then helplessly looked over at Zim again in disbelief. He had never seen him sleep before. Not that he could remember. It was very rare that Zim slept. Did he even need sleep? This annoyed him, because it revealed how little he still knew about Zim's biology, even after all these years. In respect, Zim had done well to keep these details to himself. And likewise, Dib had been very selective about what he told the Irken about humans.

The drive took another ten minutes. The sky was as dark as oil, and the wind still slew about, making trees bend and thrash.

He parked outside Zim's house and decided how best to wake him. To be honest he was tired, and he had had a long day. Being with Clara had been fulfilling, but it had also been stressful. It was a victory for him, he supposed. Clara seemed to like him. Now he just wanted to go home, get changed, have a shower and go to bed. In that order.

Dib started nudging him on the shoulder. He didn't have time for this. "Wakey, wakey Fudgekins. We're here."

Zim jolted awake, looking terrifically horrified as if he had just woken up in some hellhole. Then he looked around, still wide-eyed. When he saw Dib, and the car's glowing interior, he began to calm down.

"We're here." Dib repeated.

"Oh? We are? I can get out of your dirty car at last?"

"My car is not dirty!" He defended hotly. He liked his car, and was in fact, very proud of it.

"Sure, sure." He muttered, and then went to open the car door. However, his claws paused on the handle. "Dib stink. Want to meet up at that detestable 'Treaty' again on Friday?" For him, this was perfectly routine. And Irkens liked routine.

Dib shook his head. "I've got to decline the offer this time, Zim. I gotta keep myself available, in case Clara wants to spend more time with me."

"But... but of course!" Zim hastily agreed, pretending that he didn't care. "You humans must... eh... frolic together. Be seeing you then, Earthsmell."

Dib pointed his thumb towards Zim's house outside. On the porch, just by the door, was a huge box. "That's a big delivery Zim. What have you ordered?"

"Oh you know, just the 'end of the world' kinda stuff."

"Yeah? Should I be worried?"

"Oh yes!" Zim smiled childishly and jumped out the car. Then he shut the door and waved at Dib after a heavy wave of pained coughing before marching over to his house.

x

He was finally feeling good about himself despite the bone-wracking fever rolling up and down his body like an inward chill. Pride was rekindling in his little chest, and all of his earlier worries fell to the wayside like little bits of tattered nonsense.

His Tallest had responded in kind, and they had sent him exactly what he had asked for!

"Finally!" He chortled to himself as he gazed down upon the box sitting on his front porch with gleaming eyes. Gir's special parts had arrived!

All excited, like a young smeet straight off the conveyor belt, he took the big box in through the open front door. It barely fitted, and it was a strain to carry, causing new plain to flare up in his arthritic shoulders. Whatever was in here wasn't light.

He closed the door with a good, hard kick and put the box in the centre of the lounge between the couch and the TV. Gir hadn't moved all evening it seemed, for he was still watching cartoons with a bag of peanuts in one hand.

"New TV?" The little robot asked hopefully.

"No, Gir. It's some new equipment." He removed his disguise, first popping out the eye contacts to reveal his deep fuchsia eyes; the damaged one now healed, and then lifting the stifling wig from his sensitive antennae. He secreted this disguise away, standing once more as an Irken soldier. As Gir looked on, befuddled, Zim began cutting off the highly-resistant-flammable tape using one of his spider PAK legs. When all the tape was finally cut away, he opened the top cardboard flaps and then had to peer inside, for the box was almost as tall as he was. As soon as he had opened it however, a foul stench began to creep into the air, sullying the immediate area.

After a pause of looking into the darkened contents, Zim's antennae drooped.

"What's in da box?" Gir asked in a whispery undertone.

The foul reek continued to permeate the room.

Zim sniffed at the air, and then hissed. The stink was rotten.

"There must be some mistake!" His brain jolted out of its brief intermission as he tried to make sense out of the situation. He started pawing through the contents using his claws, and in doing so, he got blood on himself. "There's... there's nothing in here but... body parts!"

Irken body parts.

The true horror of what he was really seeing came to him in a slow, thick wave. When the realization fully smacked into him, he shrank back from the box, compulsively wiping his hands on his uniform in an effort to rid himself of the sticky blood.

"Computer!" He choked. "Analyze these foreign contents! What are they?" Sudden bile stormed up his throat and he turned away, one dirty claw to his mouth. He fought against the vomit, causing his whole body to shake and shudder.

The computer replied in its customary aloofness. "The deceased remains of biological life forms. Irken life forms. Six to be exact, all ranging from twenty years of age to sixty."

Zim gagged again, his spooch threatening to heave up all the ice cream and tea he had consumed not hours before. And Irk, the smell! "Computer... tell me, what did they die of?"

"Insufficient data."

Zim hated that answer. Then he had a sudden, inexplicable thought. "Computer! PAKs! Do they have their PAKs? Please! I must know!"

"Analyzing..."

Zim waited, almost tempted to hold his breath. "Hurry it up! What's taking so long? Do they have them or not?" For if they had their PAKs, he could break them apart, and trade them for his own worn-out PAK gears and mechanisms.

Then: "Negative, Master. Their PAKs are not here."

"Shit!"

The smell was revolting. How long they had been dead in there was anyone's guess, and he didn't really want to know either. Carefully he approached the box only to seal up the flaps. Then he quickly tried to re-tape the opening to blunt some of the smell still trying to get out. So far he was managing to overrule his rebelling spooch, and he had to keep swallowing down his own bile.

For once in some time, he wasn't at all concerned about Gir's episodes. Instead his attention was focused on the TV. Upon verbal command, the TV screen still broadcasting cartoons was whisked away to make room for a lowering viewscreen that emerged from the ceiling. "Computer, contact the Tallest AT ONCE! Uplink their feed onto the main view screen!"

"Yes, Master."

Like before, the main viewscreen was full of static fuzz as he waited for communication to be established. It was a very painful wait. He could almost feel his brain melting with boredom. Gir was munching on his peanuts. "I want to see what happens to Juuudy!" He yelled, wanting the cartoons back. "Pleassse let me see Juudy again? I gotta know!" Then there was a gobbling sound as he consumed a load of peanuts. Zim didn't even look his way. His eyes stared into the static. He hated it when the Tallest didn't reply straight away. How dare they not take heed to ZIM'S call immediately? Then the static lifted, and low and behold, his great leaders were looking back at him with gloom on their long faces.

"My Tallest!" He entreated, his antennae bowing low upon his head to show his subservience, "There has been a great mistake! Those special S.I.R unit parts have not arrived! Instead I have received a box of... horrible dead Irken soldiers! All six of them!"

Red looked at Purple, and Purple looked at Red. The amusement on their faces was clear. Finally, Tallest Red turned back to the screen. "Don't you get it, Smallest Zim? It's a joke. You're a joke. So we sent you a box full of jokes."

"But... but my equipment! My S.I.R unit is malfunctioning! He could not only jeopardize the mission but jeopardize the great ZIM as well! I do not have much time! His glitches are getting worse!"

"So?" Answered Tallest Purple with dying interest. "He was malfunctioning to begin with."

"No, no this is different. Please, I need those special parts! Or better yet, just give me a new S.I.R unit and I'll switch out those parts with Gir's! He'll be like new!" And he smiled sweetly at this, realizing how very smart he was for thinking this.

"Well, isn't that something." Remarked Red with a sneer upon his glossy teeth. "After everything we've tried, and it looks like it's your own S.I.R unit that may just kill you. Saves getting our claws dirty. Well, so long Zim. Been horrible knowing you."

Purple added his voice to the fray: "Yeah. And don't call back unless you're dying. We wanna see you die, Zim. That's your final mission. Make it so, and do us proud."

Then they cut the transmission. It was so abrupt that Zim barely registered it.

"Wait! No! Please! My Tallest!" Zim screamed, banging on the screen with his little bloodied fists. But it did him no good. The screen wasn't even filled with static. It was a dark, dead black that barely reflected his own image.

Slowly, Zim lifted his head and looked over at Gir, and the fear came down on him like a brick wall. His only hope had gone.

Inside, something broke.

At the same moment, a deeper part of him: the part that was the trained soldier, stepped in, pushing the old Zim aside.

 _Use the Voot. Take its fucking controls and go to them! Go to Irk! Or the flagship! Demand an upgrade! Steal their will; bend it towards your own! They are nothing! I am an Elite! ZIM will not GIVE UP!_

Then a flash of memory stole through his feverishly entrapped mind: of a thousand Irkens all marching forth for war, their hides freshly tattooed with the Irken symbol, and the Tallest standing on a platform above them. If he got the upgrade, he'd have to be part of the great machine again. He'd be renewed, re-instated and be the weapon the Tallest wanted him to be.

Zim sneered, his eyes flashing a sick flash of old hatred and malice. Then he blinked, and his resolve drained. The Old Zim had retaken position.

He looked to the window, thought of piloting the Voot: and having it take him far, far away.

Dib did not care for him anymore.

He had Clara. It was what humans did. Breed and breed. They did not fight, or have the same purpose Irkens did. Their human lives were full of wasteful fun and games.

Zim looked down at his claws. They were shaking.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Dun dun DUNNN! Hahaha! Was that a cliffhanger? Kinda? Maybe? A little? Well, I guess there will be more cliffhangy... things later. Anyway, see you guys and gals in the next update! I hope to update next week but truth be told, it's the Easter holidays and I might not have enough time. I'll try, but this time I can't promise. Don't throw tomatoes at me, mmkay? XD If it can't be next week it'll definitely be the week after! In the meantime; bye, bye!


	9. When all gets Desperate

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

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 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 9: When all Gets Desperate**

Dib tossed and turned all night, sometimes muttering, and sometimes groaning despite the comfort of the bed, and the stillness of the room. Only a single breeze stirred the loose curtains, and a silvery slice of moon gleamed upon the nightstand. But within Dib's head, things weren't so peaceful. There was an instant of wire; shining and vital, strung across green flesh as cords of metal sunk deep into soft tissue. The screams submerged into celestial pink light as Zim came towards him in the dark, grinning his malefic grin. From his neck hung the glowing glass vial.

Dib flew awake, freeing himself from the carousel of visions before they drowned him completely. He sat up in bed, breathing deep, sacred witless for no reason. His skin was marbled in cold sweat.

The room was dark, and the clock on the nightstand read 5:00am.

Dib reached for his glasses and slipped them over his nose. The dark world of his room swam into steady focus.

He slipped off the bed, wearing nothing but his boxers, and left the room, using the narrow beams of moonlight to guide him down the landing and into his study as he rubbed sleep from his eyes. From there, he flicked the light switch and the room brightened into a gold sharpness that hurt his eyes.

Barely waiting for his eyes to focus to the light, he shambled forwards and ripped open the drawers of his desk. Amongst the junk was a spare house key: what he had been looking for earlier to give to Clara. He picked this up and placed it on the desk with some satisfaction but it was not what he was really looking for at five in the morning. Dib dived back in, doubly determined, shifting pencils and USB sticks aside until he exposed a cold, pink glow emanating from within. He reached in further and drew it out.

Hanging from a broken bit of chain was a pink vial. Dib had not looked upon it for decades.

The shaft felt like it was made out of glass, while within a liquid substance sloshed around inside. Just looking at it brought back vivid memories – memories he had abolished and left to sink to the far reaches of his mind where everyone hid their bad experiences. He supposed that hiding it in his drawer would relieve him of the past, and somehow blot out the guilt, guilt he knew he shouldn't have felt. But he did. Because he was human.

Zim had accidently dropped it during the struggle in the wire, fighting for his life. Dib saw it glistening under the vigilance of the sun, and had scooped it up, believing it to be some tool for future world annihilation. But he never did decipher it. The vial was certainly too precious to break, and its liquid contents would melt his skin off for all he knew.

And he had never returned it. Presumably, Zim had forgotten all about it. He had been doing that a lot lately: forgetting.

Dib dumped it on the desk, watching it glow for a few beats, before heading off to bed.

He was done with the nightmares.

-x-

 _~ Two days later ~_

Zim scanned the shelves, looking for the same 'JOINT EASE' cream he bought every week. It was the only one that not only worked (or _seemed_ to work at least) but did not cause a malignant skin rash like some others he had tried. However, the product he needed was always at least two shelves too high for him to reach. This caused radical issues. He couldn't even push a trolley, for the handlebars were too far up, so he had to contend with the dirty shopping baskets.

The supermarket was busy at this time of night, which irked the small Irken. He liked to shop at night because there were less people around to annoy him, but tonight was not that night. Kids ran circles around their parents, oftentimes screaming for sweets or attention, or just for screaming-sake, while old people bumbled around, taking ages to pick a certain product while holding up everyone in the aisle.

Often Zim got stared at: not usually by the adults, but by the children. They were immediately perplexed by his shortness, and his skin colour, and Zim had to put up with their taunting and confused stares. Sticking his tongue out at them only provoked their interest, and so he tried to keep his shopping trips short.

Another reason he liked a quiet supermarket was because he was able to activate his PAK legs and swoop something from far up on a shelf he would not otherwise have reached. But if there were people around, he had to wait until no one was looking. This he did with great care, fearing the day when his actions would get noticed.

Swiping the ointment into his basket with his metal strut, he secreted it away again into his PAK and continued shopping. All he needed was the cream, and pig oil. Pig oil, he had discovered, could be used as a cheap substandard for fuel. If his journey in the Voot was quite lengthy, he needed as much as the cruiser could carry.

With his basket full, he proceeded to the checkouts when he caught a bemusing sight: Dib was at the produce aisle, looking at the apples. Zim was about to head on over, hoping to startle him from behind, when Clara approached the human first.

They then held hands. And he watched Clara reach up to kiss his human.

Resentment spiked Zim deeply. Dib was His human. His play toy. His pet. His victim. He wanted to whip out an Irken plasma gun and shoot them right there and then, not for one minute caring about the aftermath. Acceptance was never an easy thing, and all Zim had known, other than his own personal struggles on an enemy planet: was the Dib. But he had made a promise to the human, and so murder was not and could never be his objective. He kind of wished he had somehow been able to avoid that wire trap, or at least rip out his own antenna among other things, just to avoid complications such as oaths. But he had heard of Irkens dying from damaged or detached antennas, so maybe it wouldn't have been such a good idea.

It wasn't even worth thinking about it. Just imagining the wires restraining his chest and neck made him massage his throat in memory before tightening up again at his current predicament.

He turned to go. What did it matter? He intended to leave for good, and return to his ilk. But he found that every time he thought about it, he felt a certain, bitter reluctance. He smacked the emotion to one side before it could grow. He was a proud Irken soldier who would serve once again. Maybe the box of dead Irkens the Tallest had sent him was merely a test of his faith: leading him to this very moment of preparation?

Pondering this, and feverishly wandering down the aisle with no clear direction, he bumped into Clara, causing him to drop his basket. Two tins of pig oil and one bottle of joint-cream went rolling across the linoleum floor. It did not help that he went into a coughing fit at the same moment. It was so gruelling that he was forced to shut his eyes and double up, feeling his head fog up with darkness.

"Gosh! I'm so sorry!" Clara started picking up his stuff. Recovering from his episode, he just stood watching her nervously, unsure how to act. And he was without the Dib. To him, Clara was nothing special. Just another dirt monkey with a stupid brain. After picking up the last item, she handed it to him with a beaming smile. "Good to see you again, Zimmy."

"It's Zim." He said, trying not to snap too harshly at her. Dealing with one terrible nickname was quite enough. He would not tolerate two.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Are you okay?" When Zim just stood there like a shy three-year old, she added: "That cough sounds pretty nasty, like it's got into your chest. Here. I bought this up for you. I have the receipt." And she handed him a dark glass bottle. When he took it from her, he found that it was quite heavy. "Bought it from the chemist. It's cough medicine."

"I don't need such filth." He said, and then realized it was not what she might want to hear. "Oh, yes! Uh... thank you, human that is Clara! I shall grease it over my... h-hands?"

"No, no. You drink it! Just follow the instructions!"

He honestly didn't want it. For all he knew, it was poison, and that she had preordained all of this.

 _She knows I'm an Irken soldier: set to conquest this miserable fucking planet! This... 'cough medicine' is her master plan! I must fool her somehow, and dispose of it! Thwarting her once and for all!_

"Thank you. I will." He said, pasting on a fake grin. "Anyhoo... I must be off now! I have much to do!" And he took the basket and ran as if he was on fire. Clara watched him go, perplexed.

-x-

While the wind howled, bringing with it the smell of rain, Zim was slinging things into the cargo hold of his Voot in the roof of his home. The cargo hold wasn't very big, but it had just about enough room for food rations, extra containers of fuel and oxygen tanks. He had to make sure he had enough to last him a six to nine month trip, while he remained ignorant to the fact that his biological shell wouldn't make it that far.

The cough medicine Clara had bought for him he had thrown into the trash can outside without further thought.

"Computer... run basic diagnostics for the Voot Runner, and initiate all preliminary functions."

"Yes, Master."

He wouldn't say any goodbyes to Gir or to the Dib. Irkens were not nostalgic or wistful, or cogitated on the past. They were singular-minded, and purposeful: focusing preliminarily on the present and future. He would miss Gir. He could not help that, and he would do his best to ignore it.

As Zim worked, disconnecting the umbilicus systems around the Voot, he ignored the fact that he was starting to see double in one eye.

He ignored the fact that he was often losing his balance.

And he ignored the fact that his heart was starting to race at the most unusual of times, even when he was relaxing.

The old soldier in him knew this was the right way to go about things. If the upgrade wasn't coming to you, you would go to the upgrade. And it was rightfully his. Every invader deserved it. Only janitorial Irkens, slaves and defectives did not.

Part of him too was looking forward to the prospect of being restored, and welcomed back into the fold. It was his calling: his destiny. But another part of him quailed at this opportunity. He kind of liked Earth. He kind of liked his life here. As he softened up as he aged, he had started to back down. But of course, such thoughts were blasphemous, some may even say forbidden.

Earth had made him weak. And he didn't want to be weak.

"Diagnostics complete. Left auxiliary turbine needs replacing before preliminary functions can begin." Said the computer.

"Fine! FINE!" Zim opened the back panel to get at the turbines that controlled the rear engines. However, in order to do the repairs, he also had to fight against his own condition. His claws shook badly, and his ministrations were clumsy. He was misjudging distances, and often lost his grip on things or failed to align components into their proper slots. He recognised the corrosion of his fine motor skills, and knew it was down to his PAK. There was precious little he could do about it, and he knew he just had to press on.

However, after a thirty minute job that should have only taken him twelve, he backed up against a stack of boxes, lurching into fiery coughs that caused his whole body to painfully spasm. It forced him down to his knees, cupping both hands to his mouth. He could barely get in a snatch of breath between each bout.

When his lungs finally started to work again, he lowered his claws to find them covered in flecks of green fluid.

"Ugh! Disgusting!" He immediately produced a bar of cleansing chalk and started frantically rubbing his gloved hands on it, ridding himself of the vile discharge. With a grunt of disgust, he threw it into the garbage pail by the Voot.

"Repairs complete. Beginning preliminary functions." Stated the computer. Exhausted, Zim sat down by the Voot. He knew he should be in the cockpit, setting up the instruments for the voyage, but he was so weak. If he stood up for long periods, the floor would tilt, and his head would get all fuzzy and hot. Was this all to do with his PAK? It had to be. He had never suffered PAK deliberation before, and he was too afraid to put himself in the autodoc to find out exactly what was going wrong with him.

As he waited for the computer to do its perfunctory tests, Zim suffered bouts of fierce chills. He huddled where he sat, trembling all over. Little green spots had started to appear on his throat.

So absorbed was he in fever, that he barely heard the computer notify him: "Preliminary functions complete. Voot Runner is ready for activation."

"Excellent." Zim used the stacks of boxes for support as he climbed back to his feet on legs that wobbled. He approached the Voot and hopped into its cockpit. He went to hit the button to activate the windshield, when instead his claw overshot it, hitting the engine button instead. The rear engines ignited, and guttering flames of blue shot into the back of the roof.

Cursing, Zim tried again, this time hitting the right switches. His gruelling coughing fits made it hard for him to concentrate.

The windshield enveloped the cockpit, and the top of the roof began to open; each side divorcing from the other to create an opening. Then, clutching the throttle, he directed the Voot straight up despite the G-force driving him back into his seat. The Voot did not stall as it rocketed upwards at one hundred miles per hour, but its rider did. Zim blacked out, the forces too much on his weakening body. His limp claws loosened on the throttle and the Voot then veered off course, angling to the right. The stabilisers held it in check, but as it levelled off, it was now heading towards the skyscrapers of Lincoln.

Proximity warnings began to scream at its unconscious pilot.

With a shudder, Zim came to, blinking dazedly. The red flashing lights had little meaning to him at first, for he had no idea where he was.

"Proximity alert. Imminent collision." Said the Voot's navigational system. "Please abort current trajectory."

Zim blinked, realization dawning. He grabbed at the throttle with both hands and slammed the Voot into a hard-right. The ship's undercarriage scrapped the side of an office block.

All alarms stopped, on account of him avoiding a collision in time. Regardless, the panic, no matter how brief, cost him. He curled into bad coughing fits that produced yet more blood on his lips, hands and command chair. In the end he was forced to wrench open the life support hooked to the side of his seat and plant a clear-purple mask over his mouth and nose. With one shaking hand he turned up the valve until he could breathe. The relief was like a cool hand of rescue, and he lay in the cockpit, sucking down oxygen as if he had nearly drowned at sea. Forcing himself to breathe deeply wasn't easy – as doing so encouraged heavy coughs. But he got through them, somehow, just to breathe.

As the Voot drifted through Earth's atmosphere, he drifted in his mind, strung up in fever and fatigue. As he lay there, connected to his apparatus, he began to wonder if he could even make the trip to his Tallest. Getting this far had been a struggle, and he hadn't even breached the atmosphere to enter the vacuum of space.

 _If I can't make it to them..._

 _Oh no no no! I... ZIM will make it! It's easy! I'll activate the autopilot and just... rest all the way there._

He wanted to sleep, but he knew he couldn't. He had too many things to do.

Zim righted himself slowly to avoid dizziness he was sure would descend if he overtaxed himself even a little, and scooted towards the control panel. He placed his claws around the offensive mask and removed it, breathing in the stale, recycled air of the cabin. Just as he was about to grab the throttle again to take him to the atmosphere, his spooch gurgled nosily. Moments later, he was helplessly vomiting all over the controls.

His mind was caught between disgust and horror. And he was impotently faced with the truth.

He could not fly the Voot. And he certainly could not fly it all the way to the Massive.

Vomit oozing between his claws as he held them over his mouth, he reached for the controls and set it to autopilot: home.

One option remained to him. But it was an option that degraded him.

The Dib.

This kind of defeat sent spikes of deep disappointment into him from all sides.

The Voot did a sharp U-turn in the night sky before gliding back down, heading for his house in a sea of buildings. The G-forces weren't as bad, and he comfortably rode through the turbulence. The roof of his home was still open: in his haste and absentmindedness he had forgotten to close it. Such an oversight was terrible for an Irken Elite, but this time his pride failed to list the mistake as anything but important.

Zim flicked a control with a lazy tip of his claw: setting the Voot into autopilot for landing even though the manoeuvre was a simple one that he had performed thousands of times before. The computer diligently took over, swooping the cruiser low and aiming perfectly for its port in the middle of the opened roof. Luckily it was dark and there was very little to see: for as Zim peered out of his windshield he saw no one walking by. But this relief did not quell the shakes within: for he was gripped in a series of spasms that shook him from the tips of his claws and all along the length of his good antenna.

The Voot landed, the computer notifying him of its success. The cruiser's engines expelled its heat, filling the roof with fumes. Zim slammed on the cockpit button a little too hard, and the windshield slotted up, allowing freedom. Zim stumbled over the lip of the cockpit, and then fell flat on his face on the tube-littered floor. Above him, the roof had fully closed, and sterile lights of gossamer purple bathed the interior of the attic in a cold shade.

Zim lifted himself stiffly to his knees, and then to his feet.

He shambled to the conduit, his mind in a feverish whirl of confusion. Thoughts came and went, sometimes eclipsing over plans completely.

 _Code 219!_

 _Must contact the Tallest!_

 _Gir! Got to fix Gir!_

 _Call the Dib? No! No, no no! Just... No!_

 _Drink! I need a... DRINK!_

 _Code 219!_

Lost in his ramblings, he hit a button and descended. A few moments later the door slid aside, revealing his recreation room. He stood in the conduit, his right antenna flickering apprehensively. He had not meant to come here, had he? He never came down here anymore. Even so, Zim saw the black piano, standing elegantly in its corner, waiting for him. Zim drew near it almost timidly as if he was approaching some sleeping beast and not a piano.

Playing the piano had always calmed him, and helped orientate his energies.

Stiffly he stood by the stool and lifted the panel. The black and white keys gleamed up at him, spotless and clean.

Nervously he hit a key, and a single, shrill note pitched the air into a keen sound that spoke to him as clearly as any voice. It gave him chills. Hitting the keys always gave him chills. As an Irken soldier, it was the one thing he loved, the one thing that could speak to him as clearly as he could speak to the piano. Maybe it was a guilty pleasure soldiers were not deemed to practise, but it was his guilty pleasure. The music sent feelings down his right antenna, and it was as sometimes as pleasurable as ecstasy.

Having already made up his mind, Zim scooted onto the little stool and glazed over the keys, his claws splayed and ready to begin. He tapped one key, and then another, feeling as much as hearing the music connect to his feeler. As he played, his right antenna stretched forwards to catch every subtle note. His claws began to hit them faster. He played without notes or music books: remembering from memory all the tunes he had ever heard.

The rhythm was soft and gentle, building up slowly as he played. Three of his claws kept to a low, undulating tune while his right claws tapped to a higher, more subtle melody. The music was reminiscent of Chopin or Beethoven.

As it always did, the music eased his frayed nerves, settled his rebellious spooch and lessened the terrible shaking. The music gave him control and brought things into a clearer perspective.

The piano was an old friend who never judged: never hated, never disappointed. It was always there, needing just a little maintenance now and again to sate Zim's emotions: emotions that he was not allowed to express in the world. It helped balance his organic brain against that of his PAK's programming, and he was able to surface above his indoctrination, if only for a short time.

The pace grew faster as his claws began to hammer on the keys, delivering an eager tempo. He was a little out of practise, but he was still able to hit the right keys at the right time, delivering a smooth cadence that was soft and smooth, and yet full of sadness.

" _What are you looking at Zim? It's a music shop. They sell instruments." Dib had said when his alien stopped by a shop._

" _What's that?" Zim pointed._

" _Oh, that? It's a piano."_

" _What's it do?"_

" _It plays music, Zim. Why? You want to drop it over a city or something?"_

His tempo eased, his claws slowing down. Music was something that was his: something he could tame and make his own, and yet it would never be unless he strove to make it. When he hit the last key, he sat back on the stool, listening to the fading echoes diminish into the air. Then he leaned back too far, and though he wheeled his arms in the air to keep from falling, he fell anyway, and his PAK hit the floor first with an audible _smack._

Before he was taken completely, he knew by default that the true enemy was his PAK. Pre-programmed for certain events, it began to take over his organic brain, willing it to desist as it strapped him in for sleep: a sleep that could last an eternity. The PAK was not to know any different, for it only did as it was programmed. Too damaged, too old, and it did as was intended: to put the host to sleep until repairs were to be performed, or until exterior help intervened. But there would be no intervention, and there would be no repairs. But the PAK did not know this.

Cutting through Zim's instinctive, organic needs and drives, it began to drug him, slowing down his tissue function as if it were some malefic god. Zim could feel it, as though wires were lassoing around him, and pulling him down. They were as effective as chains, and the more he struggled and pulled, the stronger his PAK induced his bloodstream with narcotics. The PAK had obviously taken all the damage it could sustain, but no longer. It was putting its host to sleep so that it could protect the last parts worth protecting: like a damaged computer shutting down to protect its hard drive.

To Zim, it was death.

His consciousness was lured deeper and deeper into a black coma.

He tried to fight against the allure, knowing it was the only way to keep himself from doing any deeper. His body was falling into a hole, one he would never be able to crawl out from. Mentally he pushed against the impending sleep, and though it was a mental battle he waged, it felt as physical as a real battle. To the casual observer, Zim was behaving no differently. He lay on his side next to the piano, eyes closed as if in sleep, kicking with his left foot occasionally as if he was menaced by ill dreams. But upon closer inspection, it was clear that this wasn't quite right, and that this was no ordinary sleep. All three of his PAK's ports were blinking bright pink as it fought to keep its host under its command.

To Zim, it felt like he was wading through mud and thorns as he strove ever forwards.

 _Wake up!_ He was screaming at himself. _Wake up, Zim! WAKE! UP!_

The PAK was talentless, mindless, yet it was filled with data and corrective treatment. Parts of it no longer functioned, and the damaged areas seemed to spread its rot outwards; corrupting what was left. It could no longer regenerate the rotted tissue inside Zim's spooch, and because of this failure, and to arrest the deep spread of septic infection, it had to stupefy its host. But Zim did not understand: could not understand. He had no idea how ill he really was, and blamed it all on his PAK.

 _Wake up! By Irk, wake up! You can't let it win! Fight it! FIGHT IT!_

He felt the PAK's influence relenting, and so he pushed harder. His mind felt like it would fracture under the pressure but he strained anyway. His organic brain had always been a slave to his PAK's needs and influences: binding him to its authority. But the PAK was weak too, and if he fought just a little more, he could finally break free of it.

Meanwhile, as Zim shivered, kicking out randomly in the air, and sometimes squealing distressfully as he bled sweat, Gir heard him and came over, sitting by him protectively. "Master?" He whimpered, sometimes reaching out to touch him. "Master? Wake up. Yous having a bad dream. Master?"

The PAK retackled him, sending him further down the darkness of his own abyss. Down there was silence and cold black. He would never again see the light of day.

He wanted to detach himself from it, but, like the bones in his body, he was married to the device, forever. It contained his memories, his core personality (or so his Irken teachers said), and the energy for his organs. As much as he knew this, he wanted to rip it out of his body as if it was an evil tumour, and bury it.

Even if Zim had known the true reason the PAK was keeping him comatose, he still would have fought.

He felt himself slipping, and thought of Gir without a father: his hopeless, retarded child, alone in the world for the rest of his days.

He could not allow that.

He would not!

 _WAKE UP!_ His scream seemed to resonate, and the PAK conceded suddenly, as if drained of power.

Zim's eyes flew open, but for a moment he could not move, only breathe in deep, his little lungs troubled by a fitting splutter of coughs. He could smell Gir as much as see him, and though he tried to command his limbs to move so that he could crawl away, he could not. He just lay there, as if glued to the floor.

Gir was sitting right by him, doodling on the floor with what was left of his right hand. And he was humming to himself. When he saw that Zim's eyes were open, a broad grin stretched across his metallic face. "Master! Yous woken! Did you knock yer head and falls down?"

He snatched his tongue back into his mouth, not realizing that it had been hanging out of his lips, on the floor. It was as dry as his throat and it took him several attempts at swallowing before he felt like he could use his voice.

"Gir... p-pluease leave me a-alone..." He was terrified of Gir switching into duty-mode. He was unable to move his claws, let alone try to dodge if Gir happened to go crazy.

He oftentimes wondered what Gir would do after he'd killed his master. Would be finally have fulfilled his purpose? Or would he continue on, switching and going crazy on anything that moved until he was at last stopped by violent means?

Was it possible that Gir would go back to normal, once his father was out of the game?

"You're wet!" Gir then eagerly exclaimed.

Yes, Zim was wet from his own icy cold sweat.

Energy returned to him in small doses. Panicked by Gir's close proximity, he was able to shore up enough limited strength to drew himself to his elbows, and then to his knees. His PAK (the silent antagonist, or protagonist depending on how you looked at it) no longer rebuked him or challenged him. Zim's organic brain had overridden its survival programming, either permanently or for a short time. Even so, because of this slightest victory, there was no longer any protection from the source of infection buried deep within. The last of the thinnest walls in his defence was now gone: and gangrenous bacteria began to permeate his bloodstream and other organs.

He sat for a spell, trying to re-focus like he was a computer booting up from an overspent power outage.

Gir did not move, and remained by his side.

"Yous want me to get you somethin'?" The deranged robot child asked at length. "You want me ta call Dibbie?"

"P-Phone..." Zim muttered hazily, "P-Please Gir. The phone. Bring it to me."

"Okie dokie." He left, and tinkered off to another room. Then he returned carrying a phone in less than two minutes. Zim, still kneeling on the floor, shackled in fatigue, accepted it in guarded surprise. Gir showed no signs of his usual aggressiveness, but Zim was not relaxing, though he could do very little to ward off an attack, should it come.

The Irken started slowly dialling the numbers. Each number he pressed seemed to hammer home a nail in his soul, and each nail was a monument of shame and defeat. It hurt him to do this. It hurt him a lot. But he had to survive long enough to fix Gir. And if there was one option open to him, he had to at least consider it before burying it completely.

-x-

Dib was at home, and taking Clara on a grand tour of the place. The sofa had been newly cleaned, and all green blemishes had gone. In fact, the whole house had gone through a chaotic instance of sudden cleaning, so much so that even the coffee table seemed to gleam under the lights of the crystal chandelier his sister had bought him one Christmas.

He wasn't usually a tidy person. All of his UFO magazines and ashtrays had been dumped in a cupboard, all his spare clothes thrown under the bed. He had even lit a candle in the parlour to try and get rid of the smell of stale cigarettes and coffee. All in all, Clara seemed to be impressed. His house wasn't exactly small, and was quite lavish for a man who lived on his own: all thanks to being the son of a highly renowned professor. He didn't possess many objects of character however. Clara was impressed with American history, and interesting topics and books, and Dib had very little taste other than his alien and ghost memorabilia and text books.

She did like his old, blue book on old lullabies though. She picked it up from the book closet and flicked through the yellowed pages, pleased at the find. Dib only smiled nervously. The old book was the one thing that was his mother's, and it was precious to him.

"My mother used to read that to me. When I was very little." He said, trying not to sound bitter or hateful about it. Whenever he thought about his mother, he got sad or angry. And he had not meant for her to find the book or take any further interest in it beyond the front cover. But he had to remind himself that if he wanted to share his life with Clara, then he had to be open from the start. Zim had taught him to be defensive, incredulous and bitter for many years. And he was deciding that losing those life lessons for today wasn't so bad.

"It's beautiful. I used to have one just like it. But I lost it." She turned the pages slowly, smiling to herself at old fond memories.

"My favourite was 'wanderer's lullaby.' I think it was about finding yourself. When I was young, I never could understand it, but my mom read it to me a lot."

She put the book down with nostalgic approval and then turned to lay eyes on him. "Dib. You're so sweet. Did you know that?"

Dib did not know that. He had lived a life where he had taken insults either from his sister, the bullies at school, or a very obnoxious alien. He had never received a compliment in his life, unless his father happened to be in a good mood and patted him on the head as though he was a dog.

He got nervous suddenly, and he found that playing with his fingers was far more interesting than engaging with a female. She walked over and cupped her hands around his, quelling his fidgeting. Then her lips drew near and he could feel her breath on his mouth. It was the closest he had ever been with a normal human being, and he was terrified. Luckily he had plenty of wine beforehand to help calm him, but he still felt totally unprepared for this moment. He had been hoping for a kiss a little further down the road, but not so soon!

Still, Dib reached forwards to meet her, closing his eyes because he wasn't sure how else to do it.

 _This is it! This is the moment!_

 _I finally get to kiss her! Will I do okay? Or will I fuck it up?_

Just as they were mere centimetres apart, the phone blared out loudly next to the sofa, causing both of them to startle from the moment. Dib regretfully pulled away from her and looked accusingly at the phone as it blasted them with ugly ring tones. It was ten at night! Who the hell would be ringing him?

"Sorry about that." He said flimsily, even though he knew it wasn't his fault, but it was _his_ phone that broke that precious moment that might have turned into something beautiful.

"That's okay." Clara said, still looking eager. "Are you going to answer it?"

"No. Let it go to voicemail. Nothing's more important to me than you."

Clara decided to sit down on the sofa, exactly where Zim had bled out not more than a week ago. "You have a lovely place." Then she pointed at the various gaming systems beneath his flat screen TV. "You have all the consoles!"

"Yeah."

The phone quit ringing, and Dib's recorded offhand voice kicked in, requesting to leave a message. But no message was left. In fact, the phone started ringing again, just as loudly. Someone trying to reach him so late at night meant that it might be more important than first perceived. Dib apologized to her and then picked it up, hoping for the sake of the caller that it was important.

His tone was as belligerent as his mood. "Yes?"

A faint, croaky reply was speaking from the receiver. "D-Dib? Is that you?"

"Yes. Who else would it be? And who is this?"

"What? S-Sorry... I didn't quite hear you. Is this the Dib?"

The Dib?

The recollection took a second. "Zim? Is that you?" He barely recognised the voice. It didn't sound like the invader at all. Even so, if it was him, he spoke extra loud just in case.

"Y-Yes!" Came an aggravated response as if the alien's mental patience had already been blown, "I... I may have some need of y-your ugly assistance Dib worm. Can y-you... meet me somewhere?"

"Assistance? You're not capturing any more humans are you? You're too..." He was about to say _'too old'_ but he had never mentioned Zim's age to his face before, and didn't want to in case it made the invader react badly.

"No, no! They stunk too much! The mess they m-made! Look, no tricks, okay? I just w-want to speak to you."

"You are speaking to me!"

"I am?"

Dib rolled his eyes. "Look, Zim, I don't have time for your games right now. I gotta go. See you some other time maybe."

"You can't..."

In mid-sentence, he cut Zim off and put the phone back on its receiver. Before his newfound annoyance could spread any deeper, Clara enticed him to sit beside her on the sofa. Dib smiled. Though inside, he was a little disappointed with himself for what he'd just gone and done.

 _I promised never to turn my back on him. And I hung up his call. Does that still count? No. Of course not. Zim's just jealous. He has no one else to talk to except Gir, so it's only natural he wants to butt in._

And Clara: her charm, her everything, made him forget all about the alien, and the wire. He didn't want the promise to hold him, as a spider's web held the fly.

-x-

"You can't hang up on me! I hang up on you!"

The disconnection was so abrupt that it took Zim a minute or two to register it. Once he had, hate filled him like a fast-acting poison and he threw the phone at the floor. It didn't break, but its plastic casing cracked down the middle. The Elite snarled, shoving the old Zim; the weak Zim through the back door. His kneecaps crunched as he rose to his feet, but he ignored it. "Curse humans! Curse the oath!" He wanted to yank his useless left antenna out of his skull once and for all. Perhaps then he would be free from the past. If he had not fallen into that trap, he would have killed the Dib, and hung his fucking entrails from the wall as poachers did to their trophies.

His claws clutched at his broken antenna, thinking that he could dislodge it as if he was pulling a weed up from the ground. The Dib made him so MAD! It was his fault he hadn't conquered this part of the galaxy! His fault that he had got soft and old! His fault, his fault!

Gir reached up and pulled at Zim's left arm. "No!" He cried. "No, Master!"

"What do you know?" And he slapped Gir's hand away. "I'm surrounded by morons! First the Dib, and then you!"

Even so, he took his claws away from his antenna. It would have to hang there, broken as always. He supposed cutting it off at the stem with a laser would be about as painful as cutting off an arm or a leg. Perhaps he would even die from it.

To distract his wayward thoughts perhaps, Gir suddenly took out something from his head compartment and shoved it into Zim's face. "For yous! I found it sleepin' in da garden!"

Zim smacked it away from him. It was a dead bird. Gir held it up from its broken wing.

"No! Bad Gir! What did I say about picking up carcasses? They're full of germs! Throw that thing outside and then go back to the TV and gorge yourself on stupid commercials! Off with you!"

Gir ate the whole bird by dropping it into his mouth as if he was a seal eating a fish and then he was loudly licking his metal lips and making the most rancid of noises. Using a PAK leg, he hooked it into the robot's shoulder pad and pushed him into the furthest corner.

"Get OUT of here!" Zim hoarsely yelled. "Or I'll lock you in your room!"

That seemed to do it. Gir burst into floods of tears and threw a tantrum, rolling about on the floor as he sobbed and screamed. Relying on his one exposed PAK leg, Zim hooked him up again and manoeuvred him over to the conduit. He forcibly shoved him in and in moments he had hit the button and Gir was sent up to the uppermost levels.

Zim finally relaxed, but when he went to retract his PAK leg with telepathic command, the gears jammed for a moment, internal components crunching against each other. The PAK leg could not be drawn all the way in, causing about three feet of it to hang out of his PAK like some flaccid grotesque limb. He tried again, starting to panic a little.

"Fuck's sake!" He raged. The PAK leg finally slipped in at last, sparking as it did so. Then, because he wasn't sure what else to do, he travelled down to the mainframe, sat at the command seat and stared at the screen. "Computer! Analyze my PAK'S efficiency. And make it quick!"


	10. Trapped

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

* * *

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 10: Trapped**

"Analysis complete. Remaining PAK efficiency is at 47%."

Zim sat, slumped on his command chair without having the motivation to move or to even lift his antennae in acknowledgment. His mind was elsewhere, sometimes racing, sometimes halting altogether as emotions ran amok. Sometimes he couldn't even think at all, and his eyes were as blank as his mind.

His PAK was draining like an irksome battery that could never be recharged again.

There was a biological autodoc scanner down in his med lab that would determine exactly what was happening to his body. But he was too scared to see it in print. Too scared to know exactly how he was degenerating.

Besides, he already knew he was dying. What more did he want to know?

Yes, he supposed that knowing would help prevent said degeneration but not indefinitely. The computer would dispense pills to prolong his life a little longer and make it all a little more... comfortable. But if he were given more time, what exactly would it achieve?

He stared blankly at the opposite screen in front of him, feeling chilled, yet not bothering to seek a thermal blanket or even to verbally give the command to raise the temperature of the room.

His PAK was betraying him. Day by day, little by little.

It was not the end he foresaw.

This inevitability was something he had never wished to accept, something he never wanted to admit. There were always ways, weren't there? But then he saw that there were no magic solution, no escape. No cure. No deus ex machina.

 _What will be my death I wonder? Will it be at the hands of Gir? Or will it be from my own PAK? My own age?_

He dwelled on it, wondering if it would be better to die violently and quickly from a malfunctioning S.I.R unit, or to die slowly, being crippled little by little until he could no longer feed himself?

And what of Gir? If Zim chose the former, Gir may no doubt 'wake up' from his glitch, only to see what he had done. Was that fair to Gir? Leaving him with the fact that he had murdered his Master _and_ Father?

 _I do not want to die slowly like a feeble elder._ He thought _. I could try and do the PAK's adjustments myself, but I have no idea what I'm doing, and I don't have the required technology. If anything, I could make the PAK worse. I could make my end... even more painful and slow by accident. I do not care to do that._

 _Have to think positive._

 _Have to get through this._

 _I will NOT be beaten!_

 _I do not want to go to the Fall just yet and be recycled! Zim will not allow it!_

He thought of requesting another Irken to do the work: an engineer perhaps, or a specialized PAK surgeon. But they would refuse for fear of treason. For that kind of repair, without permission from the Tallest was highly illegal. And a small Irken who never grew was deemed unfit by default.

Whatever his options, he was running out of time. But there was still one thing he had to try and do, even if it would eventually end in failure.

He had to save Gir.

Ironically it was a damn sight easier just to destroy the little robot. Gir was an insane, retarded child, but he was HIS child nonetheless. Zim believed he could fix him, even if it was the last thing he would ever do. In the meantime he needed to secure Gir in some form of cage to keep him from harming him or anyone else, and then he could pool all his resources together and just try. The extra work would no doubt hasten his own death clock, but he'd rather do that than do nothing at all. Irkens were after all programmed to be productive, programmed to keep busy and see the best in every bad situation. And Zim was no different. While he could still move and breathe, he would work to fix his little metallic child.

Stiffly, he slid off the command chair with renewed motivation. "Computer, store the data and reschedule another PAK analysis in exactly six hours from now. In the meantime I shall begin to make a reinforcement chamber. I will require your assistance."

"Yes Master."

What would happen to his base after he was gone? His programs, his computer? Gir?

Dib may very well absorb everything the Irken owned and keep it to himself or share it with the world. Zim decided that he'd begin a massive computer shut-down sequence once he no longer needed sections of his base. Then, when it was nearly over, he'd destroy everything.

As for Gir, if that robot _ever_ got fixed, he could run away, and do what he liked.

-x-

Zim chose a suitable room that once accommodated a large supply of hoarded human junk. The computer dispensed of the mess, crushing it down to little cubes before depositing them in his giant recycling room for renewed material. Then the room was cleaned up and brightened, and Zim began fitting in panels along the interior of the wall that were made out of cronisis – a metal that resisted high temperatures and physical blunt forces. Even many parts of the Massive were made out of this exact material. As a result of its popularity with the Irkens, it was becoming quite rare now, and acquiring more of it was quite impossible. So Zim had to reuse many panels in other parts of his base for this one chamber. Even the floor and ceiling had to be covered with the stuff to prevent Gir escaping.

During the operation, Zim had to stop many times; sure he'd either pass out or vomit up something. His legs were shaking more and more of late, and his heart kept skipping in his chest. It made him weak and dizzy. Meanwhile the computer continued to set the panels systematically using big, grappling claws for hands that extended from the ceiling. Zim dubiously watched, wondering if this new cage would work at all. It was awful, knowing that he'd have to soon trap his very child in here. Even though Gir was no Irken, Zim was still preciously attached to him. He was after all the closest thing he would ever have to owning a real Irken child, or something resembling a child anyway.

While the machines worked, and fearing the ultimate end, Zim selected a blank disc from his library and slotted it into a recorder. For seven or so minutes he perfected his message, saying about as much as he cared to say. He kept it short, concise, with military precision, or so he hoped, saluting at the end as if he was saluting to a well respected comrade. Once the duty was complete, he ejected the disc and ferreted it away to have it later delivered to a certain young man. If he remembered.

It took all day to get the chamber ready for its new occupant. When it was finally complete, Zim inspected it one last time, making sure all the seams were fully melded and reinforced and that the panels weren't dented during the operation. It had gone smoothly. He had almost wanted – hoped – for something to go wrong so that he wouldn't be able to go ahead with his plan. But as it happened, nothing had gone wrong. And his plan was going ahead, whether he wanted it to or not.

The room was big. Exceptionally big to hold something so small, and within contained nothing at all, no tables, no windows and no light fixtures. The only door was the reinforced one permitting entrance and exit under four locks.

"Holding chamber complete." The computer said when the final panel was wielded in place and after Zim had already visually inspected the room for flaws.

"Very well."

Baiting Gir was the easiest thing imaginable.

Selecting an assortment of snacks, Zim put them all on a plate and then onto a tray. Carrying the tray, he took them to the furthest corner in the room and left them there. Then he returned to the upper floor, back to the lounge. Zim still smelt faintly of burning glue and metal, but he very much doubted Gir would notice. As it was, the robot was still watching TV as if nothing else in the world mattered. It was cartoons as usual. This time it was a show called Billy and Mandy. Zim often watched it himself. It was the one program he didn't mind watching out of a hundred others that were just shit.

"Gir. I have your dinner ready. It's waiting for you."

"Dinner!" Gir looked round at him, smiling in awe. "Holy pigs!"

"Yes Gir. Now follow me." He sharply turned with his hands behind his back – military style – and proceeded to a little cubby hole where he could access the stairs. He did not like using the elevator with Gir standing abreast from him anymore. Being trapped in a confined space when Gir attacked him would be suicidal.

He descended the stairs, trying to act confident and nonchalant. If Gir picked up on this trick, then it was possible his whole objective would fail.

"What is it?" Gir asked behind him.

"What's what?"

"The dinner?"

"Oh, you know. The usual junk food you like so much."

"Oh Master! I love you!" And he hugged his Irken leader firmly. Zim froze, tensing all over, expecting those innocent little cyan eyes to flash a murderous red at any moment. He tried not to panic, even though all he wanted to do was panic.

"Yes, Gir. I love you too. Now let go of me, or your food is going to get cold."

That did the trick, and Gir let go. Zim then continued the way down, into the brightly lit and warm recesses of his inner sanctum. _This is the last stretch. If Gir can last this long without going into duty-mode, then I've done it!_

"Pigs!" Gir chortled behind him, throwing up his arms in elation.

They got to the holding chamber. The controls by the door were ready to be utilized.

"Go on in, Gir. Your dinner is just a little ways inside." Zim said, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the doorway.

Gir peered inside, standing a little too closely to Zim. "In there?"

"Yes. Go on, Gir. I don't have all day."

"Okay!" And he hurried on inside, straight for the far tray loaded with waffles, pots of syrup, tacos and peanuts.

Zim hit the switch and the door slammed down, initiating the four-lock sequence. There was a tiny window in the door for Zim to look inside. He watched Gir approach the plate, and then he began to stuff his face with all the food. He did not seem any more aware of the room than he had been upon first seeing it.

Zim smiled a little at his victory. It had all gone according to plan. Now he just needed to get to work on customising some components and illegally switching out Gir's faulty parts for these 'modified' ones.

He was hit by another fit of coughing, and he stood by the controls, holding his chest as something burned deep within. There was a voice inside. As sweet as honey. "Master? Master is that youuu? Where'd you go? It's all lonely in here. Master? Master!"

Zim took a breath and managed to allay his coughing spell. "This is only temporary, Gir! I need to find a way to fix you!"

"But... but there's no TV in here."

"Yes. I know." He began to walk away, fearing that Gir's pleas would weaken his resolve. As he went, he could hear Gir shouting after him.

"No! Master! No, don't go! I'll be good! I'll be goooood!"

Zim kept going until he could no longer hear Gir's appeal.

He felt physically drained.

-x-

When he returned to his workshop, the first thing he did was plug in his PAK for analysis, wondering how much working on that holding chamber had sapped him.

"Analysis complete." Reported the computer. "Remaining PAK efficiency is at 33%."

He grumbled as he detached the cables from his PAK. "So much to do! Where do I begin?" He only had time to work on ONE thing, be it his PAK, or Gir's modified parts. And he knew that he may as well be blind if he tried to do anything to his PAK. He knew basic repair. That was it. Nothing about the inner gerios, or the fatal layer within the spider leg contraptions to access his delicate life support and memory drives. Get it wrong and he was basically fucking up his own brain surgery.

No. He had to fix Gir.

That at least he could try and do.

"Master." Said the computer from above as Zim brushed aside junk of his previous D.I.Y devices from across the work surface. "The box of deceased Irkens are still in the lounge. What do you propose to do with them?"

"Chuck them!" Zim said. "I don't care! They may all be heathens for all I know! Or defects!" He caught himself, and suddenly found himself feeling guilty, like he had crossed some moral line.

"Very well." Returned the computer. "I shall dispose of them discreetly through the sewer system."

"No. Have them deported back into space in caskets. Let them float through the stars." It was enough. At least they – whoever they were – would not become recycled material if they did not to go the Fall. Now he just wanted to get on and work.

"As you wish."

He sat on his chair, humming to himself as he adjusted a delicate cryosphere. Once all the struts were in their aligned slots, he put it down and reached for a common screwdriver. Most of what he needed had to be salvaged from other machinery, namely parts of his own base, and that of other devices such as robots he had plans of using to destroy mankind. It was a shame he had to dispose of their most valuable assets to save one S.I.R unit but he did not mourn this loss, only find it irritating.

Funny really. He had still hoped to use his machines to destroy the Earth. He had just never got around to it.

He connected glyph-optics together to form a live cable, and as he went to connect that to a modulator, he was thrown into a fierce bout of coughing. Pretty soon he couldn't get in enough air to sate the fire in his lungs.

When he was finally done coughing, he helplessly vomited all over the surface of his workstation, covering his tools and implements in a mixture of bile and blood. He cursed, swatting at the equipment in pure anger.

They were ruined.

Still coughing, he swivelled his chair around, and when he vomited, this time his spew hit the floor.

"Oh Irk..." He spluttered, dark green spittle running down between his lips. This was no good.

 _Use the biological scanner! Make a prognosis! Computer may offer up solutions! Solutions are... good!_

His spooch grumbled and hurt. Each cough produced more fluid.

Zim staggered from his chair to rest on the floor while great feverish shivers tore through him.

He waited for it to pass, thinking that it must surely pass.

It did pass, but only some time later. He must have fainted during it, for he woke up on the floor with no knowledge of what came immediately before or after. He remembered leaving his chair, and hunkering on the floor like an elder, but that was all he remembered. He tried to sit up, feeling stiff all over. He managed to lift his body upright while he braced his hands on the floor. Then he rose his knees up until he was sitting.

"Computer... wh-what t-time is it?"

"It is exactly 8:38 noon time."

"Weather... re-report..."

"Cloudy, with a touch of frost. Temperatures will be hitting a low of 4 degrees Celsius."

"Computer. Get my coat, scarf and gloves. I'm heading out."

"Yes Master."

-x-

Adjusting his bulky coat around him while habitually checking that his contact lenses were safely sealed around each fuchsia eye, he more limped than walked down the sidewalk beside the busy road. He had so much to do and not all that much time to do it in! It was an Irken's worst nightmare, other than being captured and dissected of course.

However, when he was halfway up the adjacent street, he stopped suddenly. For the life of him he could not remember why he was out here, and why he had even left his home. What was his mission? What was his plan? He had it, just a moment ago in his head! Now it was lost!

Zim turned back, wondering if he should just hurry all the way home when he couldn't recall the route there either.

He threw a fist against his head as if sufficient self-punishment would be enough to resurface his recently lost memory.

"Oh I'm so foolish! Think, Zim, think! It isn't hard! You've been out here, for what? Forty Earth minutes? Come on! I...I had a m-mission! A perfectly good mission! And I'm SURE it had something to do with Gir! Or Dib! Or something amazing! Ooh!" He turned, and now was no longer sure which way he had been heading, and which way was home. The street, usually recognisable, wasn't, especially under the descending light of dusk. The cars rushed on by, their headlights on full brightness. These narrowed, concentrated cones of light went straight into Zim's eyes, causing him to go temporarily blind. He swiped the air in front of his eyes instinctively, but he couldn't shift the dizzying spots of white and black floating in his vision. His sudden, violent fever didn't help either.

He went the wrong way, and a car beeped its horn at him when he took one step onto the road. He jerked back onto the pavement, shivery with fever and anxiety. And as if his misfortune just wasn't enough, he felt the first drops of rain pattering coolly against his unprotected neck. These droplets slithered down his collar, and he began to feel a mild burning sensation. As he looked up, his eyes still half blinded by headlights, he felt more rain hit his face.

Immediately, panic-mode setting in, he backtracked to the far wall of an office building but there was no roof to protect him. "Have to get back! Before I turn into a melting puddle of Zim!" It did not help that he remembered the fate of the green witch from watching the Wizard of Oz movie.

Taking a direction and hoping it was the right one, Zim blindly ran.

Not far ahead, in fact, only twenty yards further up the sidewalk was Gary, Dib's colleague. He was a fully fledged investigator like Dib, and worked either at the office or he freelanced around town. He stood at a vender, buying coffee and a box of donuts. Luckily the thin awning of the vender kept him safe from the rain, but he did have an umbrella. For now he was using it as a walking stick, for it was still folded up.

"Thanks for the coffee." Gary said, taking the hot cup from the seller when Zim blundered into him. Gary dropped the coffee and it spilled onto the cold, wet pavement, sizzling as the heat began to evaporate. Zim had fallen over, scuffing his knees and the palms of his hands.

"Hey! Watch whereya going you dumb idiot!" Gary said, waving the folded umbrella at him. Then he stopped and stared, his words falling short as if he had just been hit over the head.

Zim stared back up at him as he tried to get to his feet. The task was rather difficult. His spooch suddenly felt like it was about to pop. "Wha-what are y-you looking at, you big dumb hu-human?"

Then Gary pointed and shouted, "Oh my god! It's a.. it's a motherfucking alien!"

"An alien?" He blinked, feeling uneasy. As he jerked back to his feet and began backpedalling, he saw one of his eye contacts floating in a steadily forming puddle. "Oh. Right." He turned and made a mad dash for it. Gary was close behind, waving his umbrella high over his head.

"I've got you!" Gary was shouting. "You can't run from me little Martian!"

Zim ducked and weaved through the pedestrians, stricken with fear. All he wanted to do was run with his PAK legs, but that would blow his cover once and for all, and he could potentially have the whole street thirsting for his blood.

Dib's words thundered through his head:

 _They're going to find you, they're going to capture you, and they're going to kill you!_

 _And what place is that, Zim? Tell me!_

 _Is that where I stand, watching you get dissected?_

 _Is my place watching you scream and cry while they hack your arm off?_

 _Because this is the reality! I won't be able to save you when they come for you!_

"Stop! Stop you miserable little creature! You're mine!" Gary was shouting. Many people dived out of the way, confused while Zim ran like a spooked cat. He did little damage, considering his height, but Gary just barrelled through the people too slow to move out of the way.

Zim knew he could not keep up the pace. His spooch literally felt like it was going to pop or something and the thickening haze of fever made him sick and disorientated. If he fell over once more, or his spooch _did_ burst, he was going to be captured. And Dib would be there, watching him sadly from the other side of the glass, saying: 'I told you so.'

Zim ducked down an alleyway and pelted past garbage sacks and trash cans. In his haste he knocked some of them over and they spilled onto the floor. Gary, seconds behind, had to jump over them. His box of donuts had been dropped somewhere down the street.

A gust of wind knocked Zim's wig clear off, exposing his antennae. This did not help his situation, and now without the wig, the raindrops could land on his head. But due to the pain in his body, and his current predicament, he barely noticed the rain and its discomfort.

Zim skidded round a blind corner, and kept on going, however, he was slowing down. He had no stamina left.

Usually in these dire situations, he called for Gir using the communicator from his PAK, but there was now no robot to rely on.

He was on his own.

Keeping a clawed hand on his left side, he almost charged straight into a fence. He bounced off it, screaming out from the agony it caused in his spooch. Gary was upon him in a moment, slashing the umbrella down as if it was as dependable as a sword. Zim rolled out of the way using his inbuilt reflexes and the spike of the umbrella lashed into the dirt.

Close-quarter combat was in Zim's favour, despite his weakened state. His PAK legs exploded outward on either side of him, and they curled forwards like demon spikes. Gary opened his mouth and let out a girly scream.

As Zim pulled one spider leg back, about to propel it forwards to deliver something fatal, he paused, eyes wide.

He had his back to the playing field, and before him was the dilapidated building the teachers used for Religious Studies. Dib, young and small, had sunken down into the grass, crying. In his hands he held the alien's P.E. shirt. Then he dropped it to hold onto his arm that was bleeding a stark, angry red. Zim, mordantly disturbed, watched as the red plopped heavily onto the grass like paint.

"Dib... stink?"

He got smacked over the head with the umbrella. He went down like a sack of grain.

Gary stood over him, breathing hard from the sprint here. "You dirty little monster! More dangerous than you look, aren't ya? Well, that's okay. You just lay right there while I call for some backup." As he stuck the spike of the umbrella into Zim's throat, he whisked out his phone and started to make a call.

Zim blinked, and the last contact in his eye fell out, exposing his true alien nature. His PAK legs were still unfolded, and lay like shafts of scaffolding around him.

"Hey, you!" He snapped at Gary. His threat was supposed to sound mean and arrogant, but what he actually produced was just a croak.

In his surprise, Gary almost dropped his phone. "How did you learn our language so... so perfectly?" He stammered.

"I know everything! And a lot more besides. You do not know who you are dealing with!"

Gary turned back to his phone again. Zim whipped out a PAK leg and with it, he smacked the phone from the human's hand. It went bouncing off into the rain and dark. When Gary dived for the phone, Zim dived for the fence. Activating a short-distance laser from his PAK that was used for maintenance than for defence, Zim blasted it into the lower wire. When Gary came back, he pulled in his PAK legs and squeezed through the freshly-melting gap despite his red-hot fear of anything relating to wires. The gap was too small and too low for Gary to get through, but as Zim crawled under the opening, having almost made it all the way out, the human grabbed his leg. It was only now that Zim saw the green blood all over Gary's hands. It was on the floor, on the lower fencing.

And as he looked, he saw with great alarm that the left side of his coat was saturated in emerald fluid.

"Don't you dare get away!" Gary was saying, "You're gonna make me a rich, rich man! I'll be more famous than the president!"

His words were not that dissimilar to Dib's, once upon a time.

Zim let out a hefty kick with his boot against Gary's hand, even though it caused him great agony. He was sure it was too late; his spooch must have burst by now. Why he was so unwell, he had no idea. All he could go on, all he could blame was the failure in his PAK.

Gary cried out and let go, holding his hand. Zim crawled through the rest of the opening, but no longer had the strength to stand. Gary meanwhile fetched his hands around the wire fencing and tugged. But it would not budge. He also could not climb it. The top of the fence was crowned with barbed wire. He looked at Zim desperately through the links, and saw his fame escaping him.

Though this was a victory for Zim, it felt more like defeat. The upper port in his PAK had started to blink red. It was a signal to all other Irkens that this one was now dying.

The rain had found new potency and it was now pouring down.


	11. Blood and Rain

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

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 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

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 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

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 **Piratemonkies64 and Skeleion: This chapter is dedicated to you. Piratemonkies, You've worked so hard bringing these chapters to life in so many ways.**

 **Skeleion thank you for the incredible fanart. To this day I still adore it.**

 **x**

 **CHAPTER 11: Blood and Rain**

 **x**

Earlier that morning, before the clouds grew heavy with rain, Clara strolled into Dib's kitchen in one of his burrowed shirts, and noticed a pink vial, complete with a repaired neck chain lying on the table. It was the eerie glow it was emitting that attracted her interest. It even made the wood of the table glow from under it.

Dib was hashing up breakfast in his usual blue shirt and black cord pants, not paying much attention. He had barely slept a wink all night, thanks to having a female in his house for the first time. He had barely managed to wash and comb his hair, letting his scythe spring up on his head. Either way, he was tired, but happy. Being with someone else was a very new feeling indeed, one he still could not get his head round even after weeks of dating.

"Two eggs or one?" He asked her.

"Dib? What is this?" She had even gone so far as to pick up the jewel, letting the vial fall against her pale white fingers.

"Oh, nothing! Nothing at all! Just some junk I used to keep as a kid."

"Aren't you going to wear it?"

"Wear it?" He blanched, his hand still stirring the eggs and bacon with a spachelor.

"Yeah." And she laughed. "It would make you look pretty cute, don't you think?"

"But it's pink. Only girls wear pink." He could not see the same fascination. If anything it suited her, but he didn't really want her to be wearing something that was potentially harmful. Everything Zim ever created was always harmful in some way due to his deadly inclinations.

"In the 1800s, pink used to be a boys colour." And she approached him with her usual charisma and confidence. This always stilled him, for he was still not sure how to act around females. All he could do was smile goofily and sweat. She leaned in close and hung the vial around his neck. It hung below his throat.

It made him feel foolish. He wished it had kept the darn thing hidden.

"So, what are your plans today?" She asked.

He clasped her hands in his while the bacon and eggs were sizzling away. "Oh. I've got something very special planned for us."

Hours passed.

And Dib had the best time of his life.

Even as the sky greyed, and the world turned chilly, he was practically skipping on cloud 9.

In the evening, it began to rain. A few flecks landed on the windshield of his car, until those flecks turned into dashes of water, and then it poured.

 _That's funny, they hadn't forecasted rain. Oh well._

He parked his car, and decided to walk some of the way to try and shake off the excitement plaguing his very bones.

Oh. He was excited all right. Maybe a little TOO excited.

Dib stopped for a moment in the middle of the sidewalk, wondering how anyone else might feel when it happened to them. Then he shrugged. Did it matter? Because it was happening to him and he loved it.

He never saw himself with such a bright future. He just saw himself as a loner, getting steadily older, and stagnating away like some outcast doomed to die without a partner to dote on. He had never pictured himself with kids of his own either. Now that Clara was with him, anything was surely possible.

Because they were newly engaged.

Which made them a couple. Officially.

He had given Clara an amethyst ring, set in gold and diamond.

As Dib walked, humming some random tune to himself, a sudden misgiving occurred to him and he stopped again for the second time on the pavement. How would Zim react to Dib's kids? IF he had kids? Of course, that was open to conjecture. Zim was an alien who'd never have that same emphatic feeling a human would get for its own kin. Zim was a heartless monster who did not understand love, paternity or even his own fathering instinct. It was quite possible he'd view Dib's children as a threat, and kill them without any malice: just instinct like a male lion would slaughter another male's cubs: to lessen the competition. OR Zim would go the opposite way, and accept his children as if they were still an embodiment of Dib, and respect them as such.

However, as much as Dib wanted to believe there was some reasonable good in the alien, Zim was still a danger and still largely unknown. Even a tame bear could turn on its trainer at any time, because animals were unpredictable, and Zim shared that same unpredictability.

Was it so unfair? To class Zim as 'dangerous?'

Dib resumed walking again, the earlier fervour seemingly leaking out of him. He was still happy, and very soon he was back to whistling a tune. Zim was and wasn't his friend, so he could just ignore Zim entirely and move on with his life. Maybe he and Clara could even move to Chicago or Princeton, Indiana and begin a family there, far away from the alien?

Was that unfair?

He wished he had someone to talk to about this. But he had no one.

And he had caused Zim a permanent disability.

He suddenly felt sad and so Dib stopped singing.

He kicked a stone out in front of him, smiling grimly whenever it rained. Because whenever it rained, it always made him think of Zim.

He had parked his car one block down, thinking of walking the rest of the way because the evening was quiet and he wanted to get some of the consuming excitement out of his system. Now he was getting cold and pretty wet.

It had over a week or two since he had had Zim stay over at his place for the night. The whole experience had been strange, a little frightening and curious. At first he was sure Zim would steal half the things in his home, and then promptly harvest an organ or two. But Zim had been in a really bad way. Dib almost believed he'd pass away. And that scared the investigator because Zim was his childhood friend. His nostalgia. He had hardly changed in two decades, whereas everything else had moved along and changed super fast. If he lost such a friend he'd surely be lost. It was strange how much he did care about him, and secretly wondered if Zim thought about him in that way, or still disliked him enough not to bother with attachments of any social degree. After all, Irkens did not seem to be bound by the same friendships and coalitions humans needed and benefitted from.

 _Maybe I shouldn't tell him about Clara and I._

 _Maybe._

 _Or maybe I should._

 _I wonder how he'll react?_

 _He might not take it very well._

 _Might not even care._

 _Might be happy for me._

He decided to just get it over with and tell the Irken about his engagement with Clara. Then Zim could do what he wanted, and Dib could do likewise. After all they couldn't be in each other's pockets for the duration of their lives. Something had to happen. And Dib was only human. It was time to move on, and leave his childhood behind for good.

With this in mind, he hunched his shoulders and walked down Zim's typical front lawn. Every time he came here it felt like he had just gone back in time. He loved it. Nothing changed. The gnomes were as plain as he remembered, in their exact same spot for twenty odd years, and the paint on the house looked as immaculate as the day Zim landed and made his base. He took care of his house very fastidiously.

He stepped on something sticky and green. "Uh! Chewing gum?" He tried to scrape it off the bottom of his boot. It sort of came off, leaving a great long sludge on the pavement. He swaggered to the purple door and hit the doorbell.

The excitement flooded him anew. Just then, as he stood waiting, the phone in his pocket beeped. He went to answer it, only to find that he had answered it too late.

 _One missed call._

The number was Gary's number.

He was quick to get annoyed. _It's my day off! Leave me alone! I'm busy!_

When there was no answer at the door, he hit the doorbell again. Usually if Zim didn't answer, it was Gir who was more than happy to welcome him inside even if the ritual was very awkward for the human. If Zim was busy in the lab, he could be absent for hours, never showing himself until it was very late. Zim hated him showing up unannounced though. In fact, Zim hated him showing up in general.

But the door did not open.

"Hmm. Odd."

Maybe Zim had taken Gir out for a walk to run off some of his child's energy? Zim had slowly been struggling to cope with Gir's antics as he got older. But it was raining. If the afternoon looked one shade dark, even a smidgen dark, then Zim bolted down the doors and windows like the witch from Wizard of Oz, and did not come out until the sun was practically burning everything down below and all the puddles had dried up.

He knocked a few times, making each bang considerably loud since the alien was deaf. "Hey, Zim? It's me, Dib. I have some good news!" That was sure to grab his attention! Zim was like a girl when it came to gossip, especially when he was gullible too. Tell him the sky was falling, and he'd believe it.

Dib waited in the rain.

He got no answer.

He thought of heading back. This conversation wasn't what he wanted to share on the phone, but in person.

"Jesus, Zim. Where are you?"

Because he didn't like to give up easy, he tried the doorknob, half expecting it to fill his body with electricity. Such tricks were not uncommon when Zim did not want 'strangers' at his door, and this paranoia extended to the postman, the newspaper boy, bible thumpers AND charities. To Zim, they were ALL his enemies.

Dib turned the knob, and there was no fire to greet his hand, and no electrical discharge.

Instead he was met by a rather surprising outcome.

The door clicked open.

It was unlocked.

Dib opened it casually, making his presence known all the while in the fear that Zim may yet emerge and shoot at him with some alien-type gun. "Zim? It's Dib. The door's open and I'm coming in. I wanna talk. I think you'll like what I have to say."

The front lounge was eerily quiet and lifeless, which was never normally so when it came to Zim's living habits. There was no Gir. In fact the couch was completely empty of miniature robots, food mess or even plushies. The TV was black with inactivation and the kitchen beyond was just as empty.

"Zim?" He called, spooked now. Zim never left his base so openly unguarded before. The proximity alarm should have gone off long before Dib even touched the doorbell. So why wasn't he up here? And where was Gir? Outside the rain picked up a stronger gusto, and the wind added to the symphony. This reinforced the idea that Zim couldn't possibly be out there, walking Gir.

 _Maybe he's... sleeping?_

"Zim," he called, thinking that surely Zim must be hiding round a corner, ready to surprise him, "Clara and I... well... we... uh decided to... get engaged." There. He had said it. He braced himself for insults, or congratulations or SOMETHING. But he got no repertoire of any kind. At least, not by an angry Irken. Instead he got answered by Zim's very own computer system. Its low voice filled the room almost without a source. Dib looked for it, but saw no speakers of any kind, yet it was all around him, loud, clear, and in perfect English.

"Zim is not in the vicinity. You, Dib Kaiser Membrane, are intruding."

Dib wasn't sure how seriously to take that. Was it a threat, or just an automated response? "Then you know who I am, and that I am no threat."

There was only one moment of intermission before the computer gave out its calculated response. "Then precede no further until you have Master Zim's permission."

"So, if he isn't in the vicinity, where is he?" Dib asked, still looking around for the source of the computer's voice. There were plenty of tubes and wiring on the ceiling, enough to fill a gymnasium.

"He went outside only an hour ago."

"Where was he going?"

"He did not confirm his objective."

"Okaaay. And Gir?"

"You are not authorized to have access to that information."

Dib was taken aback. Never had he been given such an abrupt answer before. And since when was Gir's whereabouts strictly prohibited?

The rain hit harder outside, pelting the window and closed door like an avalanche of tiny fists all knocking at once. It was getting truly awful out there.

He stepped forwards, undetermined on how best to proceed. Something like this had never happened before. Should he just give up and go home? Zim's business was Zim's business. Unless of course, world domination really was involved this time.

Then he stepped on more sticky green residue. It was in the carpet.

"Gross!" He again tried to smudge it from the bottom of his shoe, and then stopped. This 'residue' was all over the floor; in puddles. Sticky puddles. "Urm. Zim's computer, what is this _stuff_ on the floor I'm treading in?" He thought that it was perhaps nothing more ordinary than Gir's habitual sugar spillages. For all he knew, it was just liquid juice, or some energy drink that Gir had spilled.

The computer took slightly longer processing this response, as if it was debating with itself whether to clue Dib up onto what the 'stuff' really was. It had obviously come to a decision. "That green residue is drying Irken tissue. Or in layman's terms, blood."

"Blood? Irken blood?" He looked again at the dregs on the floor, his mind struggling to understand what the computer had just told him. "From Zim?"

"That is correct."

Panic, dread and horror collided into him all at once, and suddenly he wanted to run and find him. "Then where is he? I have to find him! What... what the hell happened in here?"

The computer repeated its earlier response. "He did not confirm his objective."

"And his condition? Did he hurt himself again?"

"You are not authorized to have access to that information."

Dib rolled his eyes. _Sure, sure._

And he had left about an hour ago. But to where? If he had been injured, where would the Irken have gone to?

Then his face lit up with the answer.

And the panic got worse.

"I... I gotta go." He raced for the door. The computer did not answer.

He threw the door open and dashed out into the rain. No longer did he feel the cold, hard bite of the resulting downpour. But the pavement was slick and very wet. He had to be careful not to slip as he ran. On his chest, the pink vial glowed brightly.

The splodges of green were not easy to follow. They were almost spaced unevenly apart, about twenty feet or more. Some were tiny droplets, others were much more remarkable. How he could not have noticed this beforehand was beyond him, but he was noticing it now.

The tracks led down the first block, and luckily to his car. He jumped in, started the engine and started following the sidewalk very closely. He had his break lights on, and ignored all the angry drivers who overtook them, bleating angrily on their horns as they did so.

He thought he had Zim all figured out. The tracks were in the direction of his own home. But the tracks veered off entirely to somewhere else shortly after, which confused Dib completely. He had to get out of his car to follow a side alley that led to a dead-end street that he had never been to before. Why Zim had chosen to come this way was a mystery. Maybe he had, gods-forbid, come out without his disguise, and saw someone approaching him? Hence why he had ducked down here? But there were no answers for Dib in this place, only puddles of blood that were steadily being washed away by the rain. If he did not find Zim before long, then soon he wouldn't be able to track him at all.

It was as if the gods were conspiring against him.

 _Why am I worrying about an alien anyway? Oh shut up, Dib. You damn well know why. I've known him too long. He's got too old to take over our world. He's a friend. Even if I can't trust him._

He fought through the rain, running almost blind in the storm in unfamiliar territory as the pink vial bounced against his chest. The dull evening light was now too dim to see by, and he wished he had brought a torch along with him from the car.

His phone started to ring. Excitedly he got it out his pocket, hoping it was his alien. In his disappointment he saw that the number calling was Gary's... again. There was a moment of gross indecision. To answer the call, or to just ignore him?

"Oh Jesus." He hit the little green icon and answered. "Yeah, it's Dib. Make this quick, I'm having a bit of an emergency right now."

"You're having an emergency?" He heard Gary snap on the other end of the call, "I've been chasing a fucking alien through Lincoln! I've been trying to contact you! This is big! You gotta get down here, quick!"

Dib had to stop and lean against the wall in fear he'd just keel over at the news. "What?"

"I know right! It sounds insane! But I chased after it with my umbrella! But the damn thing escaped me and I have no proof! I was going to get a jar to gather up its blood but the rain has washed it all away! I can't believe it! I was this close, man! If you come down Bishop Street we can hunt it down together! It's small and it was limping pretty badly! We can do this!"

Only one concern was spearing through his mind: "Did you hurt him?"

"What?"

"I said, did you HURT him?"

"What kind of question is that?" Replied Gary on the other end of the line.

Dib pinched his eyes shut. "Where did you see him last?"

"Up at Fleet Street. Down the alleyways. I checked all down there though. It's long gone."

"Oh my god." He hung up before Gary said anything else. His mind was storming with problems anew, and he quickened his already fast pace, looking frantically in every nook and cranny as he splashed through deepening puddles.

It wasn't long before he realized he had a bit more of a problem.

Gary had called the police.

Cops were everywhere. Their blue and red lights flashed heavily in the sweeping rain, and men patrolled the sidewalks and alleyways with their dogs. Gary was amongst them, helping with the search. A young cop with a moustache was trying to draw what Gary had seen on a notepad under the roof of a retail shop.

Dib ran up to the one who was in charge. The man wearing a military cap was eating a soaking wet donut in the rain.

"Excuse me sir?" Dib piped up, trying to sound genuine even though he was out of breath and looked spooked half to death, "There's been a mistake!" He could barely see out of his glasses: they were so speckled in rain. But he saw the cop turn slowly towards him.

"Can you move aside, young man?" The man said dismissively. "We've got an investigation on our hands and we don't want anyone in the way."

Dib whipped out his paranormal investigator's card and showed it to the cop. "I work in the field! Gary reported seeing an alien, did he not? Well, it's a hoax!"

"Excuse me?"

"I work with Gary! He makes these elaborate lies to get attention! Pull your men back!"

The cop looked straight into his eyes. But the oath bound Dib to the spot. Whenever his resolve cracked, all he had to do was remember that sunny afternoon when Zim was being strangled to death by the snare he had set. And so, Dib did not step down.

"Your co-worker Gary was awfully convincing." Returned the cop.

Dib put his card away. He had to go, and outrace the police if he had to. So he stepped back onto the sidewalk and commenced his search.

Deep down, Dib always had a feeling this would happen someday, and Zim would get chased and then caught.

As he grew madly desperate he started calling, ignoring the odd looks the rare few people he encountered were giving him. "Zim? ZIM! Where are you? Please answer me!"

At least Gary's story had confirmed that Zim was out here, and was seriously hurt, hence the green liquid. And the computer did not lie after all. When asked the right questions, it gave the right answers.

"ZIM!"

The rain was like a thick blanket. It seemed to press downward, making Dib hunch forwards as he ran, tripping a few times in the wet. The faint sprinkles of blood were all washed away now, and he was proceeding blind.

"ZIM!"

Cars splashed by, their headlights cutting through the dark.

He was scared and had come too far to give up. He could not stop searching, could not leave Zim out here, hurt.

 _Gods Zim, please don't be out here. Please. What if I do find you, and the rain has melted you down to your bare bones?_

It was a sickening thought. One he did not wish to see come true.

Perhaps the Irken had sought shelter, and was safe?

He tried to look for other distinguishing marks, like boot prints or any signs that a small green alien had passed by.

After rushing down a small pathway between two residential allotments he came to a miserable dead-end. All around him was nothing but chain link fences and dumpsters where the residents dumped their trash. And it smelt bad. This was the backend of Fleet Street. He had been everywhere else, including Bishop St.

He cursed, kicking at the ground with his right boot heel.

 _Now where am I supposed to go? Back to my car? Back home? Or back to Zim's house on the slightest chance he's returned?_

He was about to turn round and head the way he had come with less impetus when his foot stepped on something. He stopped and bent over it in the dark and rain. It looked like a child's ebony sock. He stole forwards and, just using his index finger and thumb, picked it up on its edge. It was so soppy and wet that it hung from his fingers like a sodden tongue. But it was no sock. It was a slippery, plastic boot.

 _Zim's boot._

His eyes scanned anew for any further evidence, hope coming in leaps and bounds. His eyes adjusted to the dim light of the dumpster as rain thundered all around in violent harmony.

He went over to the far corner where two big dumpsters stood: their contents so full that their lids were part-way open to emit foul smells. In the dark recess, between the dumpster and the chain link fence was a mound of wet newspaper. From it was a faint hissing sound, like something sizzling in the microwave, and a wispy haze was rising into the rain.

Dib went on his hands and knees, not caring for one minute about the wet gravel and the grime. And he looked under the newspaper tent.

Within it, lying awkwardly on his side, eyes closed in distress, was Zim.

Dib immediately went to work. Believing innocently enough that Zim had just been caught in the rain and was waiting it out, he began shrugging off his trench coat. "Zim, what the hell are you doing out here? Good thing I found you! I can't believe you're out here, and without your damn disguise again. You stupid fool! The cops are out there, looking for you!"

Zim's eyes opened slightly at his shouts, revealing a line of crimson. "D-Dib h-human?" His croaks were weak. And he wasn't wearing a disguise. His plain alien nature was exposed.

"Yeah. Come on, I'll get you out of this rain. The car's not too far away. Then I'll shout some more at you later, okay?"

At that, Zim curled backwards slightly into his tiny recess of newspaper, though it was clear he was struggling to co-ordinate his limbs. "No... no! L-Leave me be!"

"Zim! It's okay!"

"Stalking m-me, w-were you?" His croaks were so hoarse that Dib could barely hear him. "I'll enslave you y-yet!"

"Look, we don't have time to argue." He opened up his coat, ready. "Come on, get into my coat, you idiot. I'm trying to save you."

"I don't n-need s-saving..."

Zim lay back beneath the newspaper and made no move to get up. He just blinked slowly. The light in the dumpster wasn't too good, so Dib couldn't see him all that well. However, there was a strange red light pulsing every second on the top half of the Irken's PAK. To him it looked like a warning light. This either meant Zim was about to explode or it meant something else entirely.

Dib hesitated, thinking that Zim might be injured. So he reached over and threw the wet newspaper aside to heave Zim to his feet. Zim was reluctant. As pollutant rain struck along his unprotected skin, new blisters began to form, causing the flesh to suppurate and then bleed. The transition was happening so quickly and releasing Zim's natural body heat that it caused this 'steam' effect.

Zim was not heavy. His small stature and lightness of build made it easy for Dib to lift him up so that Zim's legs dangled uselessly on the ground, and his chest was braced against Dib's arm; keeping him from sliding back down to the floor. It was while he had him propped up that he slung on his coat over as much as Zim as possible – which was relatively easy. The trench coat was enormous, and fitted over Zim like a shroud. But the trench coat wasn't waterproof and though its fabric was tough and thick, it had already had a soaking from Dib's endeavours to get here.

Zim, he found, wasn't even trying to stand. He was not putting any weight on his feet. And he had stopped struggling which was very, very odd. Zim was likened to a wild animal, and never let Dib touch him.

"Zim, can you walk? Or do you want me to carry you? Your PAK is blinking! Is it supposed to do that?"

He was more than happy to carry him – it wouldn't put him out at all since Zim weighed that of a toddler and he wanted to be quick before a platoon of cops came round the corner. But Zim might mind. Either way, he had to hurry.

However, contrary to what he thought, Zim made no dispute. In fact, the one thing he did that made Dib almost drop him was spew hot green liquid from his mouth. The fresh fluid marked the pavement in splashes that were quickly being dissipated by the rain.

"Shit!" Dib didn't know what to do, or even what to say. He just kind of stared at the discharged liquid like it was toxic acid or something. But what he did need to do was get him back to the car, and out of this infernal storm. Then Zim could argue and fight him as much as his heart desired. So, with this in mind, he swung into action, because action made him get moving; made him repress the thoughts in his mind. Think too much and you won't get anything done.

Without waiting for permission he swung Zim up into his arms like grooms would do for their brides, and he hurried back down the tight alley with his strange cargo. Zim squealed tightly at this. The sound was two parts pain, one part anger.

The paranormal investigator could hardly see. The rain had dotted his lenses with water droplets and the streetlights above fractured these droplets into a kaleidoscope of light. His hair was streaming, and the thin shirt on his back was steadily being blotted until the dark material had stuck to his skin.

Zim did not protest or struggle anymore, which struck Dib as not only unusual, but worrisome. Zim was a proud, arrogant creature who hated help and touch above all else, and gloated about his own 'superior' abilities whenever he could get a word in edgewise. So this silence was disturbing.

"Zim. Talk to me. Is it the rain?"

 _The blood... the blood trail I followed. Has it all come from him? Where is it all coming from?_

He felt warm wetness against his arms, and suspected it to be more freshly emitting blood.

"Hey, Fudgekin, talk to me! Talk to me, please?"

This time the mocking nickname solicited no response. Zim had his eyes shut tight.

He left the residential area, trying to rework his way back by memorising the route he had previously taken. In the dark, and struggling to see out of his glasses, he found this very hard. If he got lost now, things might get worse, unless he could stand under some shelter until the rain abated, which didn't look promising. It was the kind of rain that lasted all night, maybe even longer.

"Why'd you get caught out in the storm, Fudgekin? Why? You've never been caught in the rain before."

The coat had him well protected, except for his antennae. Not wanting to crush them, or kink them out of joint; especially the broken one, Dib had purposely left them sticking out; for they were the most delicate part of Zim's anatomy. His face and limbs were all deeply secure in the recesses of the coat, but the coat itself was wet, and he wasn't sure if Zim's skin was still blistering regardless.

"Just a little further."

 _Please talk to me._

 _Why are you so quiet?_

 _You're never quiet, Zim. All you do is shout, and curse and hate._

Feeling lost, he listened to the distant sound of traffic and went towards it. Before long he remembered the route – the broken door by a 'Don't Walk on the Grass' sign. Then there was another streetlamp, and another, and before he knew it, he was back on the main sidewalk where the road connected. There was an empty bus stop and Dib ducked under its dome-glass shelter for some brief repose. An oval area of dry ground encircled the bench while beyond that was a steady curtain of rain.

He could hear the police sirens in the near distance, and their dogs barking.

His car was less than sixty yards away. If he strained with his eyes, he could just see it parked across the road beneath a streetlamp.

Other cars streamed past, little waves of water being swept along by their tires. Dib had never known it to be so wet. He wished he had paid better attention to the forecast, and that Zim had too. Where was Zim going anyway at such a strange hour? And WITHOUT his disguise on? Did he have a death wish or something? Zim didn't usually come to areas outside of his own home territory. In fact, his home was almost two miles back the other way. Unless of course those dumpsters had some special, secret intelligence to share? There was not a lot Zim did anymore that still surprised him.

"Zim, hey, you hurt somewhere?"

Zim barely opened his bright eyes, and even his right antenna, usually more animated than the expressions on his countenance, was limp and did not so much as twitch. One drop of water ran down the torn split in Zim's broken antenna, and dripped off the tattered end.

Something was badly wrong. He had not seen Zim move on his own since he had pulled him up from beside the dumpster.

His mind, spiking with panic, went to possible scenarios.

 _Maybe he's been hit by a car. Maybe a dog attacked him. OR, he's been shot by a human; a human who saw him without his disguise?_

"I'm getting you to my home, Zim. From there I'll sort you out. And no funny stuff, okay?"

Zim did not reply. He merely moaned in pain before closing his eyes completely shut.

Dib took a breath as if he was about to plunge into watery depths, and he broke out into the rain once more, his boots making big splashes as he ran along the sidewalk. When there was a gap in traffic, he darted across the road like a spooked animal, carrying Zim closely to his chest. During the crossing, he heard his alien screech out in pain, and he jumped at the noise, but he could not stop, and he hoped to god no one else had heard.

Dib was fortunate. The sound of the storm pretty much droned out all other noise. The sound of the cars sloshing through the water on the road was loud enough.

He reached the other side, breathing heavily. But he did not have the luxury of stopping to check Zim over. The longer he was out in the rain, the more danger the alien was in.

After another ten seconds and he got to his car. A blanket of rain was drumming on its roof and trunk. He hit the button on his car keys and the headlights blinked on. Using one very wet, slippery hand, Dib shoved the front door open and bundled Zim inside. At once Zim started whimpering and crying as if he was in too much pain and was no longer able to endure it. Dib unwrapped a little of his coat to reveal his head. Then he wisely strapped the seatbelt across the alien's chest with the storm breathing down his back. The seatbelt was too large for Zim, so he clipped in the bottom belt and the shoulder strap he pushed behind the seat. Then he closed the door and hurriedly went round to the driver's side. Once in, he turned on the heater and activated the windwipers.

"Just hold on, Zim. A little further and we'll be at my place."

Zim was all curled up on the seat, rigid and tense with pain. When he next opened his eyes, the keen light in them was gone. In fact, his eyes had stopped shining since the EMP incident. "L-leave me a-alone! You s-stalking me!" He was repeating himself, over and over. Lastly however, as Dib turned to look at the rear-view mirror for cops, he cried in a squeaky voice: "I'm... I'm s-scared. Don't h-hurt Z-Zim!"

It wasn't the sort of thing Zim would ever say, and it cut into Dib's heart, leaving a wound that would never close for the rest of his life. "It's okay, buddy. It's okay. Just keep breathing. I'll sort you out. Don't worry." He released the handbrake and put the car in first gear upon activating his indicator. Once there was an opening in the line of oncoming cars, Dib pulled out and was driving down the road as rain tried to veneer the windshield. The windwipers worked strenuously to hold back the torrent of water.

As he drove, his glasses started to steam up, so he tried to wipe them clean with the edge of his shirt whenever he could. The car heater was blasting warm air into the compartment, yet it was a slow process and Zim was shivering like he was full with fever. His eyes, though partly hooded, were open at least. His little arms were clutching Dib's coat to his chest. The smell of suppurating flesh and Irken sweat and blood was thick in the car.

They passed a cop car, and Dib tried to stay calm and relaxed. They didn't stop, or ask him to pull over and they just carried on driving.

"Zim, talk to me. How are you feeling?"

The traffic was moderate. It was late at night, and people were still coming home from work or going out to parties. And the rain made everyone drive slower.

Zim muffled out a few Irken laments but made no verbal replies that Dib could understand. In fact he just tried to curl up tighter on his seat, in obvious discomfort. Thick, green fluid from an unknown source lined his lips and some of it was pooling under Zim's rear.

 _That's a lot of blood._

He swung his eyes back to the road when he almost didn't break in time. The other car in front had stopped at the red traffic lights and he had almost gone straight into the other car's rear.

 _Fuck! Gotta keep my eyes on the road!_


	12. Dismay and Loyalties

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **EDIT:**

 **Hiya guys! I'm sorry! FFN has glitched, badly and did not send out any notification of an update! I have no idea what went wrong! I was going to be stupid, and keep quiet about it, but Piratemonkies64, Rocky Rooster encouraged me to notify you all; which is 100% fair. I tried to hide in the dark, and you guys pulled me out! I'm so sorry! :(**

 **xxx**

First and foremost, major, major news: **Mechabite** has done AMAZING art from Saving Zim! They do contain spoilers from earlier chapters so I urge you read all of the current chapters before seeing them, BUT please do see them and leave a like/comment if you can on her art! On Tumblr, her account name is weevmo. I would leave the link but ffn hates links and I doubt it'll show up. Regardless, you have to see these! I cannot thank the artist enough! They charmed me from the moment I saw them, and I didn't just get one fanart. Or two. I got three! If in doubt, type 'saving zim' on the tumblr search bar, or her name. ^_^

I dedicate this chapter to her due to her incredible art. I shall be sending a personal thank you message, although I wish I could do more to show my appreciation. Honestly I am blown away. She did all of these of her own accord. Inspired by my crazy writing. Goodness knows how long each piece took to make, but I am honoured that my story moved her to create these scenes. One of them is from the last chapter: of Zim up against the chainlink fence, covered in blood. I feel old fashioned now! I have always written Zim's blood as green, and everyone else does his pink! I know why that is so, and I have my reasons too, but since Mechabite drew these, and coloured them, I have to say I think I might just go to pink. Which is a big deal for me. For 10 years Zim's blood has been green for me, but this one precious picture has made me falter, making me reconsider my ways. And that is power right there.

Before I make this message any longer, thank you Mechabite. Gods, you are amazing!

And we have finally come to the point in the story where the summary is in the chapter!

* * *

 **WendigoBro**

You know what, no kidding; I have recently jumped back into this fandom after 10 years myself. And it was only because I found out about the comics as recently as November. I'm very happy you've hopped back into it as well. It is good to be back! And you'd be surprised to know that I used to be exclusively a 'Dib' fan. I never really liked Zim. Until I went back into the fandom. You think I nail them that well? Gosh I really hope so. I know what you mean when the characters can be written... badly. It can be quite a mix. And Zim is really, really hard to understand and interpret. I am so going to miss these older versions of them when I finally write 'the end.' I might actually cry. Thank you so, so much for the heartfelt review. You have no idea how much I fawned over it like a kid. Welcome back to the fandom! I wished I'd never left it, but I'm glad I returned to give you all one good last story from me.

 **ImTired**

I know you reviewed waaaay back in chapter 1, but I hope you get this reply! I am thrilled to know a lot of you are still discovering this and are happy to reveal your thoughts even at its beginnings! Thank you! Gosh, to think Dib may not have bothered coming over, huh? Zim's story may well have ended there.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 12: Dismay and Loyalties**

Dib almost hammered his blue Toyota onto the curb as he recklessly found a place to stop. More traffic sped on by, creating waves of noise and great, big splashes. He fumbled with his phone. The buttons were tricky to dial because of his shaking hands.

He felt the essence of time pressing on him like it was some physical thing; that even now, he could not afford to waste the seconds that kept on ticking.

Dib dialled the number as he watched the traffic float on by his right-hand window. He did his very best not to look down at his passenger. The distressed mewls were bad enough, so much so, that he had to turn on the radio to distract himself from the awful noises.

Really, he didn't know what to do. A catastrophe had been dumped on him, but he still had a junction of options open before him. Either call the authorities and let them deal with things, or, he deal with it himself.

On the second ring tone, it was picked up on the other side.

"Dib? Hey?" Her voice was smooth, and calm, the complete opposite to his fraying mind. To him, the voice was an anchor, and he clung to it, frightened of letting go.

Even as he spoke, trying very hard not to stutter, he still sounded shaky. "Hey, Clara. Y-You at my place?"

"Yeah. You coming home soon?"

"Urm... can you do a favour for me?"

"Sure." From her voice, he knew he had caught her off guard.

He struggled to think of some lame excuse that would at least sound genuine. His eyes wandered, and he almost caught a glimpse of the creature slumped against the inside of the door.

"Can you go to your home just for tonight? There's a top secret project I need to work on, and no one can see it. It's just for tonight. I'll call you later, and I might..." Oh shit. He was running out of strength, and lies. He was leading himself up to a bricked dead-end, and he knew it.

"Urm... sure." Her careful reply sounded a little uncertain. "Is it to do with work?"

"Kinda. It's just for now, okay? I'll see you soon?"

"Okay. I'll drop by later; see how you're getting on."

He told her he loved her, then hung up and slipped the phone back into his pocket.

When that duty was done, he turned to Zim, wondering why the tough, know-it-all invader wasn't responding to anything. If he had been hit by a car, or had been injured, hence the blood, he should still be more cognitive than this. Little could ever overwhelm the invader, Dib had learned.

"Zim." Dib sternly demanded this time, forgoing niceties. "Look at me!"

The abrupt command did nothing, as if Dib had in fact said nothing at all. The little invader had his eyes squeezed tight, his arms clutching the coat to his chest. He was hyperventilating, his shoulders rapidly moving up and down in rhythm to his strained breathing.

It was quite easy to admit he looked nothing like the Zim in days gone by. From being independent, stern and frightening, even when he was in a good temper, Zim had always been a force to reckon with. His heart was always as black as venom, and he once had so much iron mettle in his gaze it made you believe he could live for anther hundred years, overcoming each obstacle with both his hands tied behind his back.

But today that was not true anymore.

Though Dib had always known that Zim was old, he had not thought of him that way until now. Now though, it was impossible to think of him any other way.

Dib also knew he was going to get caught sooner or later if he brought Zim home with him. He couldn't keep an alien a secret forever, and especially not from Clara. It was mad. It was crazy. And he was risking it all.

All this, for an elderly space bug.

Dib reengaged the steering wheel and released the handbrake. He wanted to hear those insults that Zim was quick to dish out: the very insults that were veneered in hatred and dark humour. He wanted Zim to moan about the dirtiness of the car: the stink of cigarettes, even to notice the vial hanging from the human's neck.

Instead, Dib had immeasurable silence to contend with: that, and the banal tones of the radio station.

 **xxx**

Dib parked the car outside his home, and noticed that one light was on in the living room, for it emitted a warm glow through closed drapes. Other than that in the rain and gloom, the house looked empty. Clara must have left.

Working up some courage, the investigator looked down at Zim.

His uniform was saturated in blood. Zim was losing consciousness quite rapidly, and it came to Dib's attention that he might never wake. As he fetched Zim out of the car and awkwardly into his arms, he noticed that the Irken's PAK seemed to be doing absolutely nothing to coagulate whatever wounds he had. And its top half was still blinking an impending red. It glowed in the dark like some evil spotlight.

Using his keys, he kicked the door open. As soon as motion was detected, the house automatically lit up the hallway.

Applying the same method he used to open the door, he kicked it closed again.

He threw the wet coat to the floor and hurried Zim to the bathroom. He had to get at whatever wounds there were, and treat them, before the alien lost anymore blood.

He lay the invader down on a towel, instinctively knowing that his alien was now too weak to sit up. And he was correct in his suspicions. Zim lay helpless on the provided towel, whining and mewling. Great, spasmodic shivers tore all the way down him with alarming frequency. Even now, he was still trying to curl up. Gently Dib tried to uncurl his legs back down.

The human was shivering in fear and cold himself.

Where to start?

 _Can't think! Can't hesitate! I don't have time!_

He needed someone else with him at that moment. He wasn't feeling confident at all.

"Zim, where does it hurt?" Using some scissors that were at hand in the bathroom medical kit, he started snipping down the Irken's military tunic, being careful not to prick the skin beneath. And it was made especially hard by Zim's prevalent shivering.

He actually didn't think Zim would answer, and had stopped expecting any premeditated response even though he always hoped for one. So he was taken back when the small invader did actually reply. However, his words were bloodied whispers and protests, and were difficult to understand.

"Don... dun cut me opun... y-y-you promised... you... yo promised...! Remember! The! The –w-wire!" His gloved claws feebly tried to grip the towel beneath him in agony: a towel that was quickly being soiled in blood.

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!" He cut the tunic all the way from the bottom of the skirt to Zim's armpit. Then he peeled it away to reveal Zim's black pants. All he had to do was pull these off. He had to tug on them, because they were wet and sticky, but when he finally got Zim naked, he saw the problem. The original wound in his side had opened up again, and it was practically shooting out blood as if an artery had been cut.

It was very swollen, and stank too: giving off a meaty, rotted odour that made Dib's eyes water. When he brushed his fingers over it, much to Zim's squealing anger of intolerance, the human noticed how hot it was to the touch. Dib suspected intestinal injury, perhaps Zim's spooch had popped, but really it was just a flimsy guess. He was no expert. However, the smell and the grisly sight of it were just so bad that Dib had to disappear for a few moments to throw up in the toilet. It was just as well he hadn't eaten much all day, just a breakfast of eggs, toast and bacon.

The day's earlier appeal seemed lost to him. It had started as a sunny morning, with an equally sunny proposal of new love, and an engagement ring. Now his mood had blackened with the rain.

After he was done hurling his guts up, he washed his hands and returned to Zim's side.

Using heavy strips of gauze, Dib bound the ugly wound by encasing Zim's whole inflamed middle with it. And he kept on adding to the gauze, for the injury beneath kept bleeding through the layers. He knew applying stitches was the answer, but he knew nothing but stitches. In fact, anything relating to medical know-how was pretty basic.

He was shocked and angry on many levels that Zim clearly had not been taking better care of himself. This old re-opened wound was a clear example of his negligence.

It was also odd that an injury this bad had not healed. Zim had gone through life with scrapes and bruises, and he had been a remarkable healer, sometimes atrocious injuries taking mere hours to heal over completely without even leaving a scar; something that Dib had always been envious of.

 _Your PAK's not healing you anymore, Zim. Why? What are you doing to yourself?_

Blood. So much blood.

It got on Dib's face, his hands, and his clothes. Even on the bathroom sink and walls. On any other occasion he might have fainted. But he had to repress his current flood of emotions and labour through it, his intensity of saving Zim being all that mattered.

 _We've been here before, haven't we, little guy?_

It had seemed like mere days since he last took Zim in due to him having an 'accident.' He had been bloody then because Dib had had to dump his uniform in the washing machine. What had Zim said about his PAK?

' _I don't need you or your smelly help! My PAK takes care of everything!'_

That was what he said. So had Zim lied? Or... was the PAK no longer working?

That couldn't be so.

If the PAK was no longer working, then Zim would be dead. Dib had learned enough in the past to come to this conclusion.

 _10 minutes of life, was it? Something like that. Jeez. It's been so long._

And Zim knew his own technology inside and out, surely? No way would he let such a vital piece of equipment fail him.

Carefully he pulled off the little Irken's gloves, at the time not noticing their later importance. They were so tiny, and so well made. But they were also wet with rain water and soiled blood. Placing these to one side, not realizing how vital it was to have them removed, he took off his last boot and black socks, exposing Zim's tiny, but lethal sharp claw-toes.

He looked so very different without his attire.

"Zim? Come on, keep awake. Keep your eyes open."

For Zim had begun to drift, his eyes no longer focused, his limbs all but limp and rag-doll soft. He had hardly spoken, his chest working strenuously as he seemed to concentrate on breathing as if it was turning into a struggle.

Once the last length of gauze had been applied, Dib hoisted him upright before cuddling him in a really big, fleecy blanket. Zim trembled violently as he jerked a little more awake. He then felt himself being lifted. Dib carried him out of the bathroom and into the lounge. He sat on the sofa with him, and hugged him close, trying to get some of his body heat into the blanket. Dib could hear the lethal rain pitter-patter angrily outside on the rooftop.

Though he had bound the wound in gauze, it was no permanent fix, and each time Zim coughed, a new line of blood would drip down his lower jaw.

 _If I'd never gone round to his house... If I never had the good news... I never would have known._

 _And Zim would be dead._

This revelation did not sit well with him.

Moments later, Zim had fainted.

 **xxx**

He was no alien doctor, and he was no professional first-aider. He didn't know how to stitch up a wound and the thought of driving a needle through alien flesh made him feel sick.

Each time Dib peeled back the blankets just a little to have a peek, he saw the gauze get more saturated in blood by the hour.

He roamed around the lounge like a sleepless man, with an elderly alien cuddled up on the sofa.

Dib knew he had to keep busy, and focus his energy into doing something productive. It was how he got through most stressful situations. When Zim hounded him as a kid, he threw his energies into finding solutions, rather than just sitting in the corner of his room crying. And whenever his father was gone for long periods, often weeks at a time, he kept himself so busy that sometimes he didn't even notice his absence. Perhaps that was why Gaz had always been so into games; she had merely been trying to cope with the lack of parents herself.

"Okay, okay. Try not to panic. Yeah. Real easy for you to say, Dib." He muttered and moaned to himself, wondering why he was freaking out anyway. Zim wasn't a human. He wasn't even family. He was THE enemy!

But... that promise made. And Zim's sudden slowing down.

Oh hell, he hated these implications!

Zim had brought out the best in him during their battles, and gave him that fix that kept him going. Heck, he would follow Zim into hell, just to keep getting his fix.

Besides, life would be so very dull without an Irken running around, sowing some chaos now and then just to keep things interesting.

 _So much for giving him the good news about me and Clara._

His happiness at being engaged was still there, he supposed, but the weight of Zim's fall in health put things into a darker perspective.

So he started keeping himself busy, real busy by hauling stuff from upstairs. All his best blankets, he donated to Zim without hesitation. His compassion would have been quite comical, and perhaps even considered insane if his younger self had seen what he was up to. But Dib carried down a hot water bottle, pillows, blankets and old clothing in his laundry basket and set them down in the lounge. Each time he came in with new stuff, he looked over at his unexpected alien guest, hoping Zim would be stirring. Even when he was half deaf, his good antenna was still good at picking up subtle vibrations in the air, like the whiskers on a cat. But Zim remained just a still, lifeless lump on the couch, his antennae just poking out from the top of his blanket.

 _I wish this was a joke. I wish I didn't care. I wish I could take it all back._

What would his father think of him: now that he was harbouring an alien? For the SECOND time?

 _By American Law, if I were caught, would I be put in the electric chair?_

He wasn't sure if there even was an invented punishment for the harbouring of extraterrestrial life. But he was pretty sure the Government would invent one, just for him; which was a scary thought, enough to keep him awake at night.

He began arranging all the soft bedding before the radiator. He had the heating on in the house on full blast, and this sudden warmth made him remove his jacket when he started to sweat.

Dib stepped back and admired his work. He had made quite a nest made out of blankets and pillows of all various colours. Better to have Zim lying near the radiator and on the floor, than to have him on a bed where he could fall off. He didn't know if Zim even had a bed at his place, or slept in some kind of insect-type burrow.

 _And he needs new clothes. I need to work on that._

"Okay, Fudgekin. Time to move you to somewhere more comfortable." He approached the little blanket-huddled Irken and scooped him up by gently sliding his hands beneath the bundle. He heard Zim distinctly moan, and Dib got hopeful, thinking that he was waking up. But Zim slept on, murmuring and grunting in his sleep. His low words were indecipherable, and sometimes they sounded foreign, like he was talking in another language. Dib could only assume that it was his native dialect.

"You're really sick, Zim. Aren't you? What the hell happened?"

He walked him over to the little nest pile and lowered him down into it. Zim remained floppy, and didn't so much as move. When he was swaddled in blankets, he nudged Zim over so that he lay on his good side. Then Dib sat down beside him and flipped open his laptop. It booted up quickly, and he typed SEVERE BLOOD LOSS into the Google search bar. The results weren't enormously helpful:

 _Raise the appendage above the level of the heart._

 _Dial 999._

 _Keep the patient calm and warm._

 _Apply pressure on the wound._

Yeah. Like he had the luxury of dialling 999. He could almost imagine the stupid conversation that would come with it:

" _Yes, I've got an alien here, he's Irken, and he's bleeding like, really bad. Any tips?"_

" _Sorry, you have a... what?"_

" _He won't like ambulances, and he won't like hospitals. In fact he won't even like the paramedics. Can you just walk me through it?"_

It looked pretty bleak.

 _Why does he keep bleeding?_

Dib unwrapped some of the blankets to see if there was anything he might have missed. Without his attire, Zim was quite a fragile individual despite his pride and arrogance. His bones were thin and light, enabling great flexibility and speed. It was his PAK that made up for his lack of strength, and it was a brutal piece of machinery suited purely for savagery and finesse. And despite its vindictive purposes, it was Zim's life support. And there was nothing amiss with it, at least, not by looking at it. It was humming very lightly, and its oval pink ports were shining a very light pink that glowed in the dark. However, there was that one light on the topmost port. And it was still blinking red.

Then he started looking over his other wounds that were comparatively minor – wounds that reeked of familiarity, for lately Zim had been looking tired, and wore the occasional bandage. As he tore off these old bandages, the wounds opened up a whole other story. There were precise cuts on his right arm. Burn marks along his ribs and ample dark bruising down one leg.

"Who's done this to you?"

He sat back; dismayed.

Gently he nudged Zim to see if he would wake. And Zim didn't move. Even his right antenna: usually as erect as wire, lay limp and floppy upon the pillow.

"I'm real sorry, Fudgekin, but please don't bite me. I gotta check you real quick."

Dib dipped his hand into the warmth of the blankets and placed his palm over Zim's chest: on the heart that was beating within. It felt feeble: the Irken's heart was faintly tapping away with no energy. The blood loss had done this, he suspected.

 _I don't know what else to do for him._

The rain was drumming hard outside, wild and free. It made him shiver despite the warmth of the room.

Bored, restless, worried, he called Clara up to find out what she was doing.

"Oh, I'm just doing the laundry. Pretty late doing it, I know." She said, "But I got distracted by the TV. They were showing these great nature documentaries on the tiger. I know, I know I should have been watching the Mysterious of the Ghoul that you suggested on channel 7, but I ran out of time. So, what are you up to?"

Dib looked wearily down at himself. He was covered in Irken blood and it was making his clothing go hard and brittle. "Actually, I've got a really strange question to ask you. Hypothetically, of course."

"Sure! Fire away!"

"What would you do, if you came across a real alien?" He asked the question in all seriousness. But Clara just laughed, as if the question bore no relevance, and never would.

"Well, I'd run the other way." Was her answer. "They might be dangerous. Why else would they come to Earth other than to experiment on us?"

"Yeah, exactly." Dib said, feeling foolish. It was a stupid idea, STUPID; to get Clara involved just because he couldn't treat one wound on a stupid Irken. "But what if you found... a tiny one?" _Oh Dib, where the fuck are you going with this?_ He asked himself.

"Would it be... dangerous?"

"Urm... no."

"I don't know. I'd love to study it, without the government stealing every scrap. But that's just wishful thinking. To be honest, I'd rather stumble across a new species of animal than bother myself with aliens. Aliens are just someone's fanciful imaginations half the time. And no one depicts them realistically."

"Y-Yeah."

"So, how's this 'project' you're working on?"

"Urm... I'm not sure. Guess we'll have to wait and see."

"When can I see it?"

"Soon."

He wanted to blurt it all out to her. She might have a better idea on what a biological entity needed. But he couldn't. Every time he tried, he froze up, and he couldn't get the words past his lips.

In defeat, he wished her a goodnight, and hung up.

In the long hours that followed, Dib cut up one of his old black jackets to keep himself occupied while Zim slept on beside him. The Irken's uniform was completely ruined, torn and bloody, and so he had thrown it in the bin, so he was preparing the jacket in advance. Because Zim was so small, he had to customise it a lot. Firstly he cut off three-thirds of the sleeves, and then he cut away the lower part of the jacket from the back all the way to the front to make it shorter. Finally he cut out a huge strip from the back before crudely stitching it back together to make it narrower, whilst remembering to leave a hole for the PAK to fit through. It was still two sizes too big, but it was better than nothing at all.

It was now midnight and Dib was exhausted. The screech Zim had emitted when he had been running back to the car in the rain kept resounding in his head. Over and over. The screech was too familiar: and it uncovered deep, dark memories of the wire trap. He had screamed then too. It was a noise that never left his head.

 _I might need to keep him here for a short duration. Do I really want that? And what about Clara? She likes sleeping over now. Likes my company. Ooh, what do I do? She'll be over later._

 _But... but if he gets worse... and dies...? What do I do with his body? I will have to tell Clara eventually. It may destroy our relationship. God Zim. You are the Master of Bad Timing!_

At a quarter to one, Dib dulled the lights and, still in his day clothes, lay down on the sofa and dozed. His dreams were hazy, muddled and full of dark anxiety.

He dreamt of Clara opening the door to his house, and screaming when she saw the monster he held within. His nightmares kept twisting, in and out, and in one of them, he was flicking through his old lullaby book. Zim came over and stood by his side.

"I've found happiness." Zim croaked. He was smiling.

He woke in the darkened room in a cold sweat, breathing hard. His shirt was soaked through. At first he thought it was the bad dream that had woken him for it was still dark outside. Then he heard strange, unearthly sounds. They weren't human sounds. More animalistic, like a puppy whining for its mother. But there were words strung up in these whimpers: like a mantra of mindless demands.

Dib shifted his gaze down to the warm nest of blankets. There Zim lay, curled up on his side, his face partly hidden behind his arm. Zim's words were slightly muffled, but it sounded like he was whispering to himself.

Dib didn't know if he should break this spell, and say something, or try and make sense of Zim's conversational derangement. When he was still deciding, he watched Zim feel his left arm for his glove. When he did not feel it, he woke a little more. His eyes however, barely opened. "W-Where... is it?" He was murmuring faintly, his voice just a fractured whisper, "Where the... the... f-fuck is it?" He kept trying to rub his claws on his arm, as if trying to activate something. The action of his claws gave Dib a vague memory of long, long ago in SKOOL when Zim was first introduced to the class.

He was looking for the self- destruct button.

* * *

 **Dib07:** That dream makes no sense for now, I do understand. For you clever readers, you might want to remember it! In fact, anything relating to Zim and happiness, remember! (actually ignore me, I kinda shouldn't be hinting). And was that another cliff-hangerish ending? Which probably doesn't make sense either. But the next chapter is going to reveal what Zim is really going through, and oh there's gonna be more Clara. So have a happy week! And I'll see you next time!


	13. Only Irken

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Again a super special thank you to all those who have reviewed/faved/followed/loved thus far. I cannot praise you all enough for sticking with me, and loving this as I did when I wrote it. I did not expect such attention, love and loyalty from you all. Personally, I adore this fandom and all those who make it happen. I've been through a lot of other fandoms, and this is the one I want to stay in.

A little word of advice: due to stigma I've had in the past, I've got a little paranoid posting on ffn. This dark era will not last. Shit's gotta happen, for shit to happen. I can't say anymore or I'll give stuff away, but stick with it! This story is worth your time! I promise you! Yes it's angsty, yes it's dark. Kinda like life. But we'll get through it. :)

* * *

 **Guest**

4 am? 4...AM? Wow! OMG! This story really hooked/reeled you in, huh? Thank you for dropping a line and letting me know how much it thrilled you! It doesn't help that these chapters can be so long! XDXDXD But all the more to read and enjoy, right? Thank you so much for telling me what you thought!

 **moops**

So glad you stumbled into this one! OMG so hyped you like it for far! There are quite a few good stories out there; I can recommend them if you like? Heh, I think I do have that quality to uh... make the heart hurt. Hurting Zim like this is not easy: trust me! Whilst writing these early scenes, I quickly found that I severely missed his witty humour and bitter verbal comebacks. A lot. Thanks for sticking with me! It'll be worth it!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 13: Only Irken**

Almighty Tallest Red cocked his two fingers upwards in a 'come over here' gesture.

Zim tried to hide in the crowd, but his small stature could not save him this time. He was pulled forwards by their very gaze of ardency.

He limped over to them, and saluted weakly, keeping a respectable distance. Their shadows lanced over him like impending swords that were destined to strike him down.

Tallest Purple was holding an electronic tablet and he was peering at it now and then as an inspector would glance at his notebook.

"How are you going to pass the inspection looking like that?" Red admonished, pointing at Zim's broken antenna, rumpled uniform and the blood donning his left side.

"Look at him." Purple quipped as if Zim wasn't in the same room. "So tatty and filthy."

"I ran into uh... some complications! Yes!" Zim defended, smiling guiltily. "These injuries are just the tradeoff of war, my Tallest! I will not fail you! I just need more time to..."

"And you've neglected your S.I.R unit." Red returned icily. "Sealing it away and abandoning it. And to what end? To frolic with the indigenous species on Earth? We didn't put you on Earth to play with the humans, Zim."

"But... I'm NOT playing with those dirty monsters!" Zim said, "I'm just tricking them! You see, they are so easily fooled by a superior mind! And Gir..."

Purple looked at his tablet, and then whispered to Red about something. Red sniggered, then shone his crimson eyes down at Zim. "Never have we had an 'invader' that's so very old. That arthritis is like cement once it starts getting into you."

Zim went to protest, throwing up his hand like a kid in class. "But..! I am perfectly fine! I can still fight! And kill!"

"This is not part of the schedule, Zim." Tallest Red reproached with mild anger. "You've been on Earth for twenty two years, wasting our resources. Betraying our cause, and risking exposure. We can't have that."

"Can't have that." Purple repeated.

"You can't even handle your own S.I.R unit." Red added as if in afterthought. "For that, we sentence you to death."

"NO!" Zim screamed rebelliously, and then cupped his claws over his mouth, realizing that he'd just dissented against his supreme leaders.

"You always had insurgency in your blood." Red confirmed idly. Then he floated on over and passed Zim a small, round device. It was purple, with a red button in the centre. It almost looked like a human watch, but instead of telling the time, it delivered personal end. "You know what to do, Zim. Make us proud."

All around him, the other Irkens watching started shouting in once voice: escalating into a rapturous chorus that stung Zim's working antenna: "219! 219!"

Zim looked around him, suddenly locked in on all sides as if he was being blocked by four walls. Even Red and Purple were loudly inciting the numbers, grinning as they did so.

As the voices grew ever louder, leaping into a crescendo, the Irkens started stamping their feet, their voices like thunder.

"219! 219! 219!"

Even to Zim, it was deafening. He fell to his knees, holding the button in one hand and covering his antenna with the other.

Then he woke, utterly confused. The room was suddenly silent of the '219's' and instead all he could hear was his own death rattles sweeping in and out of his lungs. His skin lashed with sudden spells of fever, and then it was followed up by cold chills that made him bitterly shake.

He wasn't home – he couldn't be. None of the smells were familiar or right and the temperature was different. Zim tried to think back to what he was doing last, and he found he remembered very little. However he was aware he had run out of time – time he still needed to fix things.

A singular nightmarish pain came back, deep inside, and he realized then and there that it was probably what woke him.

One thing he did remember: he had failed Gir, his one and only child that would always belong to him.

He could not tolerate failure.

No, that was an understatement. He was _obsessed_ with avoiding failure.

His purposeful training, his combat regulations and harsh routines had inbuilt in him an almost devout belief to succeed, and achieve, not only to impress his leaders and peers, but to avoid a fall in rank, or the death penalty given to all defects and failing Irkens.

Failure meant dishonour. Death. And his PAK's core memory would not be copied and reinstated into a new Irken. And a failed Irken is no Irken at all, he's just a criminal.

And he was getting old. He had ignored it. Age wasn't important: bore no relevance: hoping in the upgrade: an upgrade that would never come, while he meanwhile fell deeper and deeper into the hole of failure.

He did not like to fail. If he did, he just tried again, or did something else to cover up the disaster. Irkens could not give up. And he had never been very emotional about it. He tried to tie nothing to feelings, because feelings just got in the damn way. But he couldn't help himself. He hardly ever grew sad, and when he did, it was behind closed walls. Gir was lost to him. He didn't know how to save him.

He had in fact, forgotten what he was supposed to do. Forgotten everything.

And so he huddled into whimpers which evoked more desperate pain.

He knew he was going to die in a matter of hours.

It was time to make an exit. The dream he had helped pull his decisions into one final choice.

Irkens self-destructed when their time came unexpectedly or when they were trapped. During training in his smeethood days, self-destruction was always a last resort. The lead instructor had taught the new candidates that suicide was honourable when a soldier was compromised, and that it was for the 'good of the mission.' Better to explode, then to leave the remains for the enemy to learn from, and study. Leaving no evidence was therefore crucial, and benefitted the Irken race.

So he tried to access this Oh-Shit-I-Give-Up button. It was hidden in his left glove, largely forgotten but crucial.

Little did he realize that these sounds he was making brought the Dib over. He didn't even know that the human was close by due to the pain walling him in.

But there were no gloves! His skinny arms were bare, the button nowhere to be seen. He started to panic. The one option he relied upon was gone!

"W-Where... is it?" His voice had about gone, making him sound raspy. "Where the... the... f-fuck is it?"

A brighter light was turned on, and he squinted at the sudden brightness. Tears of pale blue he didn't even know he was producing dripped down his wrinkles and onto the blankets below. When he smelt a stronger waft of the Dib and cigarette smoke, he tried to shy away, snarling defensively; throwing up one claw to lazily impede him. His claws met against Dib's shirt as the human stowed him into his arms. Zim struggled. The contact was too real! Too threatening! But the pain was absolute and it strengthened his cries. Arms wrapped around him, as thick as tree logs, and his panic rose.

"Hey, hey Fudgekin. Not to worry. Take it easy. Nice and slow." He felt himself being rocked, but he was frightened, so very frightened. "I'm here. A promise is a promise, right? Just take it real, real easy. Struggling will only hurt."

"Ge'... get off me...stu-stupid human... Please... I hate you..." He sobbed, his eyes closed in shame. He did not want to look up into Dib's face. Did not want to see what he was thinking of him right now as he snivelled like a smeet. Soldiers did not show weakness, and now his enemy was witness to it. Dying was no excuse. Dying with dignity was every Irken's dream. But a great death happened only in battle. Not in a human's room, in a human's arms.

"I will let go if you stop crying." Dib admonished gently. In fact, the gentleness of his voice only further upset Zim.

"I... I hate yu... Always in.. in m-my way... Let me b-be..."

"If that were you so, Zim, why are you in my house again? Being treated for the same injury? I could go on. We have quite a history." The human sighed, then added, "Tell me how you feel. What do you need?"

"My g-gloves! Give me m-my gloves!" He coughed and lamented. His vision hazed in and out as if he was in fog _. Let me die! Let me die! I want to be alone when it happens! I don't want to be coddled and spoken to! Dump me in some corner! Walk away! Let me succeed just this once!_

"Here. I've got you some chamomile to drink. I've sterilized the water. Drink it."

Zim squeezed his eyes shut, inwardly groaning at how dumb his human was. He was in too much pain to accept anything. To close to death to even care. So he buried his face against Dib's chest, and ignored the drink, moaning his displeasure. It was not what he wanted.

How he got here, he had no idea. He wasn't even sure if he actually cared. He could remember nothing.

"G-Gloves..." He repeated despairingly. He could barely even hear himself speak.

He heard Dib sigh sadly again, and he heard the drink being put down on the carpet.

"Zim, your PAK is blinking red. What does that mean? Is... is that bad? Should I be worried?"

Zim ignored him. Blood was in his mouth and he felt like he could not pull enough air into his rudimentary lungs. It took all his concentration to breathe: he felt that he might suffocate otherwise.

Dib sighed again. But it was an irritated sigh. "I'm not giving you your gloves. These... these aren't simple accidents, are they? Something's going on. Please tell me what to do!"

"Nu-nothing's going on, Dib stink." He hiccupped a few times as his mewls tapered off, leaving nothing but silent tears to fall from his dull, slightly parted fuchsia eyes.

"Then why all these injuries?"

"I told you. I f-f-fell d-down su-some stairs." Zim whispered, shivering. He found that he was reeling himself in: for he suddenly wanted to vomit. But he dared not; he could not shower the human in his disgusting liquids.

Death was such a long, horrible, undignified process and quite unbefitting for an Elite. The stupid Dib human was denying him the gloves: denying him what every battle-hardened Irken had a right to employ.

A gun then. A gun would have to do the job, even though it was a shoddy, barbaric human tool.

The easiest, simplest way now was to shoot himself in the heart. Shooting himself in the head wasn't so certain. His PAK might keep his other bodily functions going, and possibly attack anything in the vicinity before its power drained, but stopping his heart would end his life for good. Without circulation: blood energy, there was nothing to power the PAK.

He heard Dib hiss quietly between his teeth. "You can tell me when you're ready, I suppose. But right now you need to drink something, and I think you need... surgery. Your old wound has re-opened and it keeps bleeding. You've got to work with me on this. If you don't help me, you're... you're... going to..." _Die._

He found that his human couldn't quite say it.

Because Dib was pathetic. Sometimes, he was still the eleven year old kid who had never grown up.

Zim groaned. This death process was taking forever and he had no patience for Dib's feebleness.

"D-D-Dib, I... I need a weapon-thing." He coughed. The exertion brought up more blood. He swallowed it back down before it spilled down his teeth. One damn bullet was enough. He couldn't take the pain anymore.

However, the old invader could tell that he had well and truly startled the human. And he wasn't quite sure why. The pain skewered his perceptions anyway, and shortened his tactile patience.

"Excuse me? You want a weapon? Jesus, Zim! Why? WHY?"

He wasn't sure if Dib was just playing dumb, or he just didn't know. Zim would have shouted at him for his stupid insolence. But today, all he could do was keep his eyes closed and whisper gently: for he had no strength left. "What I... I do is m-my b-business. I free y-you of that stupid f-fucking promise." Then he broke down into heavier, deeper coughs that made him arch his back, both claws cupping his mouth. Coughing shored the pain up to impossible levels – levels he could not take. His PAK had must have run out of painkilling substances long ago.

"Easy, easy." Dib rubbed his bare back below his life-support while he continued to hack and splutter. "I know what you're trying to pull, and no, I won't do that. The old Zim I know isn't suicidal! He's a fighter! He doesn't take the easy way out, and he certainly doesn't give up! You must be in a lot of pain, Zim. But I can help you!"

 _You're stupid. Always so stupid._ Zim thought with some humour. But the pain was awfully influential, convincing him to step out of the game as soon as possible. Pain could make anyone go crazy. And he really didn't want to spend his last few hours coughing up blood: enslaved to bitter agony. He could just disengage his PAK, and hang around for however long it took as the minutes counted down in his head, but he knew Dib would just shove the thing back in, causing yet more pain. And besides, disengaging his PAK took telepathic energies he did not have.

"Zim. What do I do?"

 _Talking! All this incessant, useless talking!_ Zim struggled to comprehend the purpose. Dib would not shut up!

Dib brushed a hand over the left side of Zim's skull, noticing the bad fever there. Yet the rest of the alien was cold, hence his telltale shivers that made him oscillate violently every few moments. Then: "Please... my gloves!" He went to move. And failed before he even left Dib's arms. Dib didn't let him get very far. He just gathered him back into his arms again before the poorly Irken could flop sideways. Then he squeaked brokenly: "W-Why are y-you d-doing this to be... Dib?"

Dib felt defeated somehow, even though he was not the one injured. "You underestimate me, Fudgekin. I'm here to help you, okay? I'm not stupid. I am not going to let you kill yourself."

Zim didn't say anything because the investigator's answer had caught him off guard.

x

Dib held him for another few minutes. Zim was too weak to move, and it seemed to take all he had left just to keep breathing. The investigator knew that Zim was not getting better this time. Zim always got better on his own in the past. A few hours of rest and he'd be up again, good as new.

He tucked him back in the blankets and made Zim another fresh drink of hot chamomile with a bit of calpol added in – if it was safe for babies, than surely it was safe enough for an Irken? But his alien would not touch it. He lay slightly reclined, propped up in his blankets by the pillows, and ignored it every time Dib tried to tempt him with it.

"You need to drink, Fudgekin. You must be badly dehydrated."

"If it's soo good, y-you drink it..." His slurred words were beginning to gurgle, as if he had blood in his throat.

Dib saw through his refusals, suspecting that it was because Zim felt too sick and was in too much pain.

Strangely he thought of Clara, and wondered if Zim would be as bitter and disobedient with her as he was with him.

In his head, he was still thinking about Zim's bizarre 'gun' and glove request. He had never thought of Zim as suicidal, but then, in the past during their battles, Zim had a penchant for being self-destructive. But killing oneself was giving up, and that was not the Zim he knew. And he scared him. The young Zim had always been a fighter, a survivor. Not a quitter.

x

 _I should take him back to his base and get him to medical. Maybe he's got an infection in there and he's been so busy he hasn't noticed? It smelt bad._

 _I'm sure he has a medical bay, or something._

 _Be pretty fucking dumb if he doesn't._

 _Does he have his own blood bags for future transfusions? No. He's short-sighted. He never looks that far ahead. He's too sure of himself._

 _Ha. Why me? Why do I always have to pick up the pieces?_

 _Maybe he was trying to get to me all along, out in the rain? And he got lost? I'll never know if he never remembers._

 _Why didn't he treat his wound before?_

Then it all came down to the last question: the one that meant everything.

 _Why isn't he looking after himself?_

Great depression seemed to emanate from the small Irken, and Dib had a feeling it did not all stem from being ill. Zim had in fact carried this depression with him for a while now, in fact, this aura he possessed was quite recent, perhaps as recent as this year. And Dib did notice, but never bothered to address it or really acknowledge it. Zim swung from one mood to the next as easily as a child's emotions.

Zim acted a lot like a defeated officer. And, Dib thought, maybe he was. His whole life had been a military career, strung with many defeats. And, in military life, orders had to be followed, missions carried out, and successes obtained. Circumstances did not matter. If you didn't win, you lost, and no amount of contemplation could take away the sting.

He wished Zim wouldn't get so despondent. Life was life, and age was age. No one could blame him for getting old, not even his 'tall' leaders. And yet, Zim seemed to blame himself for that very reason.

Dib picked up an older photo of Zim and sat, staring at it for awhile.

As for the gloves containing the miniature bomb, he had thrown them outside in the trash can.

Outside, the rain had weakened to a dull drizzle and soon sparkling, soft new sunshine emerged to greet another day. Dib approached the curtains to open them just a tad. A strong bar of golden light fell across the middle of the lounge and spread outwards as Dib parted the curtains. Huge great puddles littered the ground outside, but the rain had almost stopped.

He checked the time on his wristwatch. It was nearly seven in the morning. He was supposed to be starting work in another hour and take Clara on the way there. Those plans had been pretty much tossed out the window. Which sucked, especially when the one you were supposed to be picking up was your newly engaged fiancée.

 _Better ring her up. Tell her I won't be coming._

He stole a quick glance at Zim. He was still lying in the blankets, seemingly asleep, but he looked really, really pale. His usual lime green colour had seemed to have faded to a more pastel soft green. And the wrinkles beneath his eyes had got deeper almost overnight.

He didn't need to ring her. There was a knock at the door which threw him completely. Zim was so poorly that he didn't hear. But Dib tensed up, eyeing the door wildly as if there was a horde of zombies packed against it, and were trying to get in. There was another knock, and then the doorbell rang out as direfully as a siren. Dib, feeling wooden and dead inside, shuffled forwards and opened it, hoping it was just the postman, or some charity worker.

It was Clara.

She smiled openly at him, her hair brushed into bronze curls.

He tried to smile back. Still in his socks, he stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. Clara must have thought that this was a little odd. She looked at the closed door, and then at him, and his shoeless feet.

"Is everything okay?" She asked, her own smile beginning to falter.

She was so gentle, so perfect. So shy sometimes, and yet open to belief. And he was about to destroy everything he had with her.

Dib Membrane felt great love for her, and he felt sick for what he was about to do. He could already imagine the rejection in her eyes. He wasn't sure he could face it. She'd either label him as 'crazy' or she'd force him to go to the cops with this outlandish story. Both outcomes hurt. And he winced. He was thirty three. He wanted a future. And he was about to throw it all away.

Carefully he pulled out a wonky cigarette from the pack, jammed it into his lips and lit it.

"Dib! You look awful! Are you sick?" She even went to touch his forehead, as if to confirm a fever there. And he did quite rightly look a state. He hadn't slept, hadn't eaten, and had sweated through the majority of his bloodied clothes. Luckily he had not yet seen a mirror, or else he may have postponed seeing his fiancée altogether.

"We... we gotta talk." He managed out of his sore, dry throat.

Her complexion paled a little. "Dib... are you in trouble?" Then her mind jumped to conclusions. "Is it drugs? Alcohol?"

"No, no, nothing like that! Look, it'll be easier if I just tell you."

"But... but your clothes! They are covered in stains!"

She was confused, and looked upset. So far Dib had been routine, acting by the book, and attending only to her needs. Now he was almost unrecognisable, and was acting strange.

"What is this about?" Clara asked, now clutching at her handbag anxiously.

"What would you say if I found an alien and kept it a secret from everyone?" He said, looking at her stonily.

Her face dropped, and she actually considered him carefully, as if he had just admitted a great sin. But she could not take her eyes away. He looked so grave.

"Why... why would you keep it a secret?" She wasn't sure if this was a joke, or if he was being hypothetical again. "Dib! Let's get you inside and cleaned up! I'm sure this can wait..."

He tried to ignore her. With all his heart he wanted to be taken up on her offer. How nice it would be, to simply forget about it all. "Clara. Please listen to me. I have a friend. And he's an alien."

She looked ready to break into a smile. "Sure you have."

"This isn't a joke." He said, trying to get through to her. "Here, look, I'll show you."

From his pocket he produced the wrinkled photo that looked older than it really was. It was a photo of Zim – in his disguise of course. It had been taken at the Treaty last year in the summer when they had both got drunk. Well, Dib had got drunk. In the photo, Zim was leaning one elbow on the table, grimacing crookedly into the camera. Beside him was a line of empty whiskey shots. Nothing had ever got him drunk.

Clara looked up at Dib again, totally inundated. "Are you okay?" She asked. "Maybe I should call your sister."

"No, wait." He produced a black ink pen. "Can I burrow your lipstick?"

She gave him that look again. It was one of pity. But she relented. She handed him her red lipstick.

"Now watch." He felt like a magician about to reveal a trick. Using her red lipstick, he smeared the tip into each of Zim's eyes. When they were both fully coloured in, he used the black pen to draw on two antennas. Then he once again showed her the photo. "That's what Zim really looks like. Remove the contacts, and the wig, and you have yourself an alien."

"Is this a prank? Are you pranking me? Because it's not funny!" She began to look pale. And her eyes were wide in disbelief.

"I'm not laughing." He said, taking a moment to drag on his cigarette. "He's inside. In my home and he's had one heck of an accident. He won't tell me what. But I think he's dying. And I need help. I'm a paranormal investigator, not a doctor. But you know about animals, right? You can help him!"

"I'm studying zoology! I'm not a veterinarian! Besides, this is a joke! Why are you saying these things to me? Is it because you want to get rid of me?"

"No, no that's not it at all! Will... will you just look at him?"

"I saw Zim two days ago. In the supermarket." She defended. "You're making this up to scare me!"

Dib dropped his cigarette and opened the door for her. "Go on in then. And see for yourself. But if you tell the authorities, he will die. And I'll spend the rest of my life in prison. If I'm lucky."

She looked at him, as if still spying for the joke. Then, almost defiantly, she stepped inside, noticing the strange odours at once. Dib shut the door and followed her in. In actual fact, Dib started to regret his quick-fire response. His messy house/ex-bachelor-pad now had a touch of Irken fluids as a finishing touch. She'd see it all, and probably have some kind of sensory overload.

"In the lounge." He said. In his heart, he knew this was about to go badly.

At first, Clara wasn't sure what she was looking for. She was imagining something big, bad and ugly, or some large, plastic toy propped in place to give her a scare. The malodorous smells however told her that something was up, and that Dib's insane behaviour had some credit.

In the warm lounge, with the drapes closed across the window, she saw something small huddled in blankets next to the radiator. Clara walked forwards three steps, and saw a little green head poking out from the blankets. One long antenna that was slightly curved hung down from the back of the skull. A second antenna was split down the middle, ending in two frayed tatters. Dib, watching her reactions carefully, grabbed an edge of blanket and pulled it down, revealing the little Irken and his bloodied side.

Clara slapped a hand to her mouth and walked backwards so fast that she bumped into the TV. The TV rocked but it didn't fall. Dib watched her, his face almost blank. It was his eyes that carried the sadness he was feeling deep within. "It's Zim. Without the disguise he wears in public. And he isn't dangerous." Gently he tugged up Zim's left eyelid, revealing the shiny crimson beneath.

"You're... you're lying! It's fake! It's... a puppet or something! Or... or a monster!" She went to run for the door. Dib left Zim's side and tried to stop her.

"No! No please! You've got to help! He needs professional care! Maybe even surgery! Please!"

She tried to open the door, and in her panic she had forgotten to flip the latch. He tried to grab her, and she hit him away. "Get away from me!"

"He's an alien, Clara! You are in the same field as me! This is the opportunity of a lifetime! No one else will know!"

"I don't care! You're crazy!"

 _You're crazy._

The words hit him deep. Those words had been barked at him again and again. Not just from the kids from school, but from his sister, and more importantly, from his father. It was as if he had never grown up, and had never climbed that precarious social ladder to get away from the stigma.

She flipped the latch and ran out. Dib didn't follow her.

 _I'm so, so sorry, Clara._

He watched the love of his life leave him. No doubt she'd call the police, and they'd have the house ransacked. Zim would be captured as if he was some precious commodity, and Dib would probably be thrown into the electric chair. The good thing about all this was that Zim wouldn't last long.

"Fuck."

Dib closed the door, and actually felt like going crazy. He wanted to punch the walls. He wanted to scream.

His heart ached. And he felt such new hate towards his oldest friend. He wanted to strangle Zim – the alien had singlehandedly wrecked his life – and always had. Now Clara was gone. And she wasn't coming back.

Angrily he stomped back to the lounge, feeling murderous and hurt. He wanted to cry. He wanted to shout and throw something. And he felt so powerless. He was losing Zim and Clara all in one day.

When he looked up, he saw that Zim was actually managing to edge upright in his blankets, sort of looking at Dib, and sort of staring off into space. His bent and smooth antennae were limp across his skull with no expressive inclination at all and his worm-like tongue was poking out between his lips at an odd angle.

He wanted to hurt Zim. He realized. He actually wanted to hurt him. It was a strange feeling that didn't feel welcome, yet in a way, it was. But the human paused, confused and so drained.

"D-Dib? Who... w-who was... the girl human?"

Dib rubbed at his eyes. "It's nothing, you fucking idiot. Go back to sleep until I figure out what the fuck to do with you."

Zim actually looked hurt at this statement, and shocked, as if he'd predicted Dib every step of the way until now. But the dismay did not last. He slowly looked about the room, and then pressed a claw to his forehead. Then he held his chest as more blood leaked from his jaw.

"Zim!" He snapped so that he grabbed the Irken's attention. It worked. Zim looked slowly up at him as if he was in a sleepy daze. Dib opened up his hand and showed him three digits. "How many fingers am I holding up?"

Zim squinted as if he had suddenly lost at least some of his acute vision. His antennae, usually the most expressive part of himself that Dib could now read almost as well as a typical human expression, were as wilted as dead plant stalks. He was now blind to what Zim was feeling.

"S-Seven?" Zim came to the conclusion at last: a deduction that took great effort.

"Humans do not have seven fingers on one..." He stopped himself. Now was not the time to argue invalid topics.

Zim blinked, the outer rim of his lips covered in gore. His folded knees were shaking, and his eyes, dark and as mysterious as coloured glass, were now opaque. With his other hand, Dib reached over and touched the alien's forehead. This light touch confirmed his suspicions. Zim was heavy with fever. And the Irken didn't even react at all to his unsolicited touch.

Dib dropped his hand. "I'm taking you home. I have no options left."

He grabbed a cloth and dampened it using sterile water from the kettle. He returned to try and clean up Zim's face. The alien did not rebuke him, even as he used the wet cloth.

While Zim sat calmly, peacefully, his dreamy eyes hooded and absent of life as if he was going brain dead, Dib started gathering his things in an absolute panic he had never felt before. Things kept falling out of his hands. He tripped over his boot. Dropped his car keys. All the while his heart was racing and he was sweating so heavily that it made his hands feel clammy and wet.

 _He's gone into shock. There's nothing I can do for him here and I'm 99% sure his PAK isn't working._

 _Have to get him back to the base! Gotta fix him!_

 _Have to get him in car!_

 _Have to get there fast!_

 _Holy shit!_

 _Why me? Why me?_

His earlier hatred had gone, replacing it with feelings of hopelessness and dread. If Zim was all he had left, then he had to save him.

After all, it was Dib's choice to get Clara involved. It was not Zim's fault, even though he wanted it to be.

He threw his custom-badly-stitched-up jacket over Zim and helped steer his little arms down the clipped sleeve holes. Zim complied like a brainless child, smiling laconically as if he found it all hilarious. But soon his tongue was poking out of his lips again, and he looked ready to abort whatever was left inside of him.

Dib didn't even bother doing up the laces. He just slipped on his boots, threw on his own coat and went to fetch his alien. Only Zim had flopped down during the brief absence, and didn't look very conscious. It looked like the will to struggle on had gone.

"Come on, buddy. Stay with me." He fetched the little Irken into his arms and covered him up in the front of his coat so that he had Zim pressed against his chest to help keep him warm.

"Wheerz we goin' Dib beast?" It was an exhausted little whisper. He could feel Zim's tiny heart beating against his chest, and each small beat it managed felt distressingly weak.

"Home, Zim." The human said.

"Home, Zim." He repeated with no recollection whatsoever.

Dib opened the door and stepped out into the light, splashing across a puddle as he made his way to his car. He had Zim's head poking out of his coat.

"I... I need the code..." Zim mumbled against the material of his shirt. He coughed a few times, and each one of these coughs caused Dib to dread the anticipated arrival of more vomit.

"What code, Zim?" He asked.

"Code 219. I need... I need... the authorization..."

"The authorization to what?"

"C-Code 219. I... I need... I reaaaallly need the authorization. It's 219. 2...219..."

 _What the heck am I going to do once I get to his base?_

Getting Zim back home again seemed all well and good, and on paper it sounded like the end of a chapter. Maybe the whole darn episode. But in reality, he had no idea what to do once he arrived. Zim's base was one of the most secure and complicated places around. And yes he had got inside before to rescue him when he had been bleeding out. But that was because Gir had allowed him entry and because Zim wasn't in his deeper layers. And he had only been in there seconds, without having the need to fiddle around with equipment or explore any further.

What if the Irken's computer treated him as a threat, and went to target him?

And all this because Zim refused the help Dib was offering him, and would rather die than accept the hand that would pull him up from the reaches of death. Not once had the tiny Elite even said that he was in pain either. And this troubled the investigator.

Why did Irkens have to be so blindly proud? Surely, in the end, it was their inherited weakness?

 _The things humans have to do for their aliens_. He thought with heavy sadness.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Gosh, I REALLY LOVED writing that nightmare scene at the beginning! I think it was because I could get a bit of the old Zim in there and his verbal tirades. He's no fun when he's sick/dying or whatever. He's too quiet! XD Thank you all for reading and enjoying. I gotta say this, and I will again and again: I'm only updating this story for YOU: the reader. Yes, I am getting rewarded tenfold for your love and support, but in the end, I'm doing this for you guys. You wanted more. And you shall receive.

The next chapter is going to be a bit more... adventurous? I dunno. Lol.

As a last note, and due to everyone's support, and that lovely, lovely art I had last week, it has helped me write the 'Fudgekin' oneshot. It should be up soon. Thanks, everyone! :)


	14. The Autodoc

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Urm. Urm. URM!

That's it. That's all I can say.

I do apologize however, for submitting this story. Because you are reading it. And I apologize.

Why do I have so many reviews? OMG! I'm gonna faint!

I promised you guys I wouldn't remove anything.

I promised you guys I wouldn't remove anything.

You're gonna kill me for this **moops,** because it's a bad chapter, but I dedicate it to you anyway! (I feel like the cynical Tallest doing this) XD For that awesome picture you did on Tumblr! I cannot get over it! This much fanart will kill me! Literally kill me from excitement urgh! It was just beautiful. The detail... Zim's expressions, and OMG how you drew Gir! HOW YOU DREW GIR! Ugh that tugged on my heart strings! It made me realize/impacted me a lot, even though I wrote that damn scene when Zim just walked away from his child! How could he? Well, I suppose he had to. It's landed him in the mess he's in now. Ugh. Uh **moops.** If those previous chapters weren't heartbreaking enough... Why do I write this crap? Anyway, thank you, thank times a million. I wish I could be as good at art as you. But I can't. So I write insane crap instead! Enjoy! (plus I don't know how to link your art here, as ffn hates links, so I don't know how to show it to everyone else).

* * *

 **Guest (G.S)**

So glad you're back! I am such an anxious guy that I sorta thought I'd put you off somehow. Yes. My mind goes to bad places. I can't help it. Urm... about that whole death knocking thing... yeah. XD

 **Orion**

Really? A different take on them? That's good, right? Lol, I suppose it is! They're both older, and still whacky I guess. Well, here you are Orion: more for you to read! Though it's probably more than you bargained for!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 14: The Autodoc**

Wrapped up in Dib's coat as a crude blanket, Zim was carried in his arms without the smallest of protests. The human entered through the front door – a door that had been unlocked since last night. After closing it, he walked across the main parlour. Auto-sensory lights came on, triggered by movement.

All was as empty as when he had first found it last night. The TV was not on, and there wasn't a little Gir in sight. This was NOT normal at all, and Dib felt foolish for not investigating this sooner. He had been so filled with his love of Clara, and then so panicked by Zim's recent downfall in health that he had not considered this any further.

At once the computer, the ever-unseen presence that dominated all aspects of Zim's territory, made its menacing announcement.

"Dib Membrane, you are an intruder. Exit now."

Dib pressed forwards, swallowing down his fear. Ever so slightly he parted Zim from his chest and lifted him as if he was delivering a sacrifice to the gods above. "I have your master. He's very sick. I need to get down to his medical unit, if the moron even has one."

"You can proceed no further without Master Zim's permission."

"Jesus! I have him here! Scan his biological signs or whatever! Let me inside his base!" He tried to think of something else. "Send up Gir! He trusts me! He'll take me down to medical!"

"You are not authorized, intruder Dib. Exit now."

He looked around madly, trying to think up some clue – some helpful endorsement to get him past this stupid, insane computer security system.

"Gir!" The human started shouting, not overly impressed with his welcome. "Gir, get up here now! Zim needs help!" He waited. There was no answer. "Where the hell is that robot?"

Then Zim's left leg twitched, and he tried to raise himself in Dib's arms. He blinked droopily as if he had just woken from hypersleep. "C-Computer... give Dib full access. However, lock du-down lower sec-section 9. Do not allow h-him to go anywhere near that level. He now has access code 'coffee.'"

 _Coffee?_ Dib thought, alarmed. _What the fu-_

"Confirmation approved." The computer relayed back with an almost human bitterness. "You have limited access Dib Membrane. Proceed."

Exhausted, Zim collapsed back into Dib's arms.

"Zim! I... I can't do this on my own! I have no idea what to look for! Where to take you! Where even is medical? I..." He never thought he would say this. "I need your help!"

Zim smiled gently up at him. It was a rare smile usually reserved for Gir, or for his own bittersweet memories. It was free of malice, free of pride. "Foolish c-child you still are, after... after all these years. You can't keep h-h-holding my hand forever." Then he closed his eyes.

Dib shook him gently, trying to bestir him back to life. "No, Zim, stay awake! I need you, dammit! Keep awake!"

But Zim didn't wake up.

Dib rallied himself forwards, knowing that he didn't have time on his side.

Apprehensively he approached the kitchen: the main room for all outgoing transport to deeper levels. He expected the computer to hound him with its messages and security threats, but all was very quiet.

 _Where the heck is Gir?_

"Gir?" He called almost sheepishly like he was tempting the devil to pay him a visit.

 _Maybe he's down below somewhere. Playing around._

He didn't feel up to asking the computer of Gir's location, so he stepped towards the bin on the black and white chequered floor. He had used it before recently. The toilet was too small for him now. The bin wasn't much better, but such small accesses to things forbidden made sense to small Irkens.

He stepped inside, huddling the little limp invader to his chest. At once the floor under his feet started moving, and the kitchen was drawn away, up and up until he could no longer see it. Now he was in the service elevator: or what Zim liked to call: the conduit. It went down and down, passing other entryways to levels quickly and smoothly. Sometimes there were stairwells.

 _So Zim has stairs after all._

It made sense. If the 'conduit' were to break down, Zim could still access the stairs to move from level to level.

The lights inside were infra-red, and other such lights such as ultra-violet, a light that Dib could not see, but Zim could. Zim could see more spectrums of colour than humans.

However, the close confines of the conduit seemed to augment the stink of blood coming from the Irken.

"Computer..." He gathered the courage to say, having a pretty good feeling that the system would hear him wherever he was in the base: "Where are you taking me?"

"Seventh floor. You are very privileged, human Dib. This floor is reserved only for Zim. Even Gir is not allowed access."

"Holy shit." He whispered to himself. A little louder, he asked: "What makes the seventh floor so special?"

"The seventh floor mainly comprises of personal equipment and the Master's private resting chamber. It contains all the necessary biological repair bays."

The word 'biological repair bay' was so impersonal. He was pretty sure it was a functional name for 'medical bay.' Did these Irkens term everything so indifferently as if they were all conveyor-belt minions and not actual creatures?

Well, at least he was being taken to the right place.

The conduit suddenly stopped – the suspension was so soft that Dib barely felt the change in transition. Then the entryway doors to the seventh level opened. Or, so he thought. Every word, every symbol he saw was now all in Irken. For all he knew, he was stepping into engineering, or some diabolical room where Zim kept all of his failed experimental corpses.

Similar to where he had been before with Gir, this level was neatly compact, having all the right equipment taking up minimal space in strategic locations. The ceiling was a bit low and Dib had to duck sometimes to avoid colliding with hanging tubes and ducts.

There was one magnificent chamber to the left of him. The outer door was rimmed with layers of inactivated metal archways – and he believed them to be force fields.

"What's that place?" He asked, thinking that such elaborate security meant that it had to be Zim's source of energy for his base, or where he kept all his databanks.

"That is the resting chamber." The computer replied from above. "The biological repair bay is in the next chamber ahead. Please proceed."

Dib complied, feeling a little disappointed that he could not simply wander off and explore.

Zim did not get heavy in his arms at all. It was like carrying a toddler. A super light-weight toddler. He was sure Zim used to be heavier than this. It certainly seemed it when they used to trade blows in years gone by.

Dib coasted down the walkway, surveying the pristinely clean machines and appliances as he went past. Some were as smooth as melons, and they were large too. What they did was a mystery.

He pointed to one randomly with his chin as his arms were full. "What's that machine do?"

"That is the _Sisilion 120_. It sanitises all of Master Zim's uniforms."

"Oh, right. It's just a glorified washing machine that does his laundry. Okay then."

His eyes were wide as he tried to see everything at once. He knew he should be hurrying, but he was a little frightened and a little caught in his own natural curiosity.

"Beside you is the _Hurlin 8._ It dispenses remedial capsules."

"Uh... in layman's terms?"

"Specify 'layman's terms.'"

"Never mind. I gotta hurry. Just guide me to this 'biological bay.' Zim may not have any time left!"

The 'biological repair bay' was fairly obvious and could not have been overlooked. Dib had seen plenty of sci-fi movies in his time, and this bay looked a lot like the autodoc in some movie he had once seen. It wasn't very large – just enough to fit a medium Irken but it was far too small if he himself were to crawl inside. It looked actually a lot like a glass coffin – like something out of Snow White. Beneath the cylinder glass dome was the base, and around and within it were heavy, black tubes that ran in and around each other like weird intestines. Beside this glass coffin was a computer panel and above it, an overhead screen. Both of which were dark with inactivity.

"Computer... urm... what do I do now?"

At once, as if he had just uttered the magic word, the glass pod parted down the middle, and the two glass domes expanded outwards, allowing access to the internal structure. Beside the pod, the screen panel and overhead screen came to life, and showed the black Irken symbol as a percentage counted up on the right-hand corner of the screen.

 _What I would give for my camera right about now._

"Insert the entity into the biological repair bay. Remove all unnecessary material." Ordered the bodiless computer.

Dib was getting real, real tired of all these impersonal terms. "He's your master! He's an Irken named Zim! Don't call him an entity!"

The computer did not reply.

The glass dome parted fully on each side. Within was a grey, mattress-type foam bed, and in the middle was a deep, PAK-sized hole. At the base and head of the mattress were more gizmos, ducts, tubes and ports, all of which looked clean and new-looking.

"Okay, Zim. Hope you're ready for this." He unwrapped the Irken from his coat and slipped off the handmade jacket from his shoulders. The gauze – saturated and now leaking blood – he was not removing.

Placing the naked Irken into the pod, he stepped back and grimly watched as the sides of the autodoc began to close again. Dib didn't like this one bit. Zim was being separated from him, even though they were mere inches apart. Now it was glass that came between them.

The glass dome sealed itself over the Irken completely, shielding him from the outside world. Sticky pads with barbed hooks, much like the monitoring pads humans used in hospitals, emerged from the plastic-looking foam mattress from miniscule holes and hooked themselves automatically over Zim's chest. This unnerved Dib just a little, and was only a slightly relieved to see new information emerge on the top right corner of the massive HUD screen. A crooked, fast moving line appeared. It was showing him Zim's vitals.

"Turn to the touch-screen monitor, and access the feed from there." Advised the computer.

"Feed? Monitor?" He turned to the panel. He touched it, and Irken jargon rolled upwards. It _did_ use touch-recognition. The overhead screen displayed much the same pattern of symbols. "But... but I can't read any of this! I haven't learnt enough Irken to understand what I have to do! Can't you fix him?"

The computer's reply was just as insensitive as all its other statements. "The biological repair bay requires a manual operator."

"A manual operator? This is ludicrous!"

Zim lived alone, except with Gir. And there was no way he could ever trust Gir with this kind of power! Why then did Zim have such a technological machine if it could not be operated by a singular program? It made no sense! Did Zim not think this through? Never use it to fully understand its limitations? Or did he simply buy it without reading the instruction manual first?

"Computer," he began, trying an alternative approach, "translate all Irken into the English language."

"Complying..."

The panel screen, and the overhead, started downloading something.

Dib turned to Zim, and watched him through the thick, transparent glass. Zim was barely breathing at all, and the saturation on his side was getting worse. He had lost too much blood already.

"Hurry!" He hissed at the ceiling, the walls, wherever he believed the computer to be.

"Translation complete." It said succinctly.

Dib once again turned to the panel. He was amazed that he could read... well, everything!

 _ **Biological repair bay: one host installed.**_

 _ **State function...**_

It read in clear, perfunctory English.

"Urm... repair bay..." He wasn't sure what the fuck to do. Zim had dumped him right in the middle of this!

 _I'm never forgiving you for this, Zim!_

 _What to do first..._

 _Think it through step by step!_

 _Try audio, then try typing! I don't know!_

"Uh, scan Zim. Tell me what's wrong with him!"

Yeah. That sounded good.

Amazingly, something did happen. Within the glass dome, on the glass ceiling, a little white portable device no larger than a bar of soap came to life and a dazzling sheet of golden light fell down and began moving slowly up Zim's body, starting from his toes. It filled the whole autodoc compartment. Dib watched in morbid fascination. In his head, he knew this was taking too long. If Zim had mere minutes of life left in him, then it was already too late.

On the panel, it read: _**Scanning in progress. 25% complete.**_

 _Come on, come on!_

 _Jesus. Yesterday everything was fine! I got engaged! I had no worries! Well, I had a few worries! But nothing like this! Damn you Zim! I hate you for this! I HATE YOU!_

The golden 2-D sheet of light moved up, making soft, whirring noises not dissimilar to an electronic paper shredder. Now it was scanning Zim's knees, then his crotch. Dib was bemused to see that Zim had what appeared to be a female slit. That was all he had. Just a boring slit. No scrotum, no fun bags. No dick.

 _Unless it's inside him. Some animals do that._

Regardless, his sex was so clean, so smooth. He was not blighted with hair, or lumps of any sort.

 _Zim. Everything about you is so... dignified. It makes me slightly envious._

"Sorry I'm looking at your undercarriage by the way. But you owe me, now." He said aloud.

The scanner's light travelled smoothly over his swollen tummy, arms, then to his chest that showcased more of the ribs beneath than it ever had before. Finally the scanner progressed over his throat, head, and his antennae.

 _ **Scan complete.**_

 _ **Initializing symptomatic results...**_

"Yes! Yes!" Dib encouraged, feeling hopelessly overwhelmed and hopelessly powerless.

 _ **List in order of severity:**_

Dib drew in a tight breath, forcing himself not to look away from the screen.

He should have known that there was nothing he could have done to prepare himself for what he was about to see.

 _ **Hypovolemic shock**_

 _ **Internal bleeding**_

 _ **Low blood pressure**_

 _ **Extreme tachycardia**_

 _ **Tachypnea**_

 _ **Right-sided heart failing**_

 _ **Infection (bacterial)**_

 _ **Foreign object of undetermined source**_

 _ **Abdominal swelling**_

 _ **Fluid in the lungs**_

 _ **Inflamed joints**_

 _ **Shattered left antenna**_

 _ **PAK ERROR CODE 17**_

 _ **PAK ERROR CODE 02**_

 _ **PAK cables compromised**_

 _ **...**_

 _ **Please state next action**_

 _ **OR**_

 _ **Highlight a specific symptom for more information.**_

Dib felt faint. He had to take a step back as he felt himself physically sway. He reached out for support and ended up leaning on the autodoc. The colour drained from his face, making him appear ill himself.

 _There's too much._

 _Too much going wrong._

One of the listed symptoms he knew was due to old age, such as 'inflamed joints' and the antenna had been damaged since forever.

The rest was just insane. Part of Zim's heart was deteriorating. What could he do about that? He was just a human being who wanted his life back!

And what even was hypovolemic shock? It had to be bad. It was at the top of the fucking severity list.

And 'foreign object of undetermined source?' What the hell?

"I can't... I can't do this..."

 _If I don't, he's gonna die... if he isn't about dead already._

 _I could just walk away._

 _We were never meant to be friends anyway._

 _I care too much for him._

 _I hate myself for it._

 _I hate these feelings._

 _I just want a normal life! And now Clara's GONE because of him! I could have had something to live for!_

 _Maybe... maybe I should have let him use the device in his gloves. Maybe I should have let him kill himself and explode._

Though, he hadn't a desire to be covered in Zim's guts, and he wasn't sure how big the blast radius could be.

What were the consequences of walking away anyway? Not much. Yeah he'd feel fucking guilty. That guilt might plague him for years. Or he might never get over it. But at least he had tried. It wasn't like he was walking away from a badly hurt human.

This was a stupid, evil little alien who deserved nothing. He had come to conquer Earth, and had in fact, captured humans in his long span of years, some – never to be seen again. He had tried to kill Dib. In fact, what good had Zim ever done?

The alien deserved nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

 _He nearly killed me._

 _I owe him nothing._

 _He came to Earth. Bullied me, made my life hell._

 _Frightened off Clara..._

 _Yet he made me feel so alive!_

 _And when he got old, he got sorta... soft. And he was fun to be around._

Dib got suddenly angry when he remembered the stupid promise he had made.

That promise.

That fucking promise that had been hanging over them for years like some incurable disease.

 _I wish I had never made it. Wish I had never set that trap._

 _Or if I had, I wish I had had the balls to go through with it._

 _I wish I'd walked away from him! Wish I'd been immune to his screams!_

Save him.

Or not to save him?

 _I can just walk away. Zim will never wake up again. And Gir? Who cares about him? He'll rot in here, just like everything else._

 _Zim, you're old anyway. I don't know what you did to get so sick, but maybe this fate of yours was inevitable._

 _I have got to try and get Clara back. I can't give up. I can still have a family. Leave all this behind._

 _LEAVE ALL THIS BEHIND! NOW!_

He turned to the comatose Irken with great sadness in his eyes. He placed a cool, clammy hand on the exterior of the glass wall. He tried to overlook how frail Zim was, and tried to forget the knowledge that all his organs were shutting down.

Zim would become just another footnote in his life; his history. Nothing more.

It was sad, but then, life had a way of turning things upside down.

They had had a good run together.

And that was enough.

"I... I tried, Zim." He said, even though his apology was not going to be heard, or even answered. "There's... there are too many things going wrong with... with..." He took a breath, and felt sudden tears burn the edges of his eyes. "I can't save you. I'm so, so sorry. Not this time. But I'm no doctor. I can't...! It's too much! This is all your fault, you hear! You put all this on me!"

It had been a sunny day. So sunny that it made the cars blind you as they streaked past. That was why Zim never saw the wire. It glared up at him, as bright as a shard of glass. And he stepped right into it.

He let his hand hover on the glass dome of the autodoc for a moment before lifting it away. The contact left behind a residue of condensation in the shape of his hand on the glass.

"I'm sorry about the wire. There, I said it! Doesn't matter now though, does it?" He huffed, getting angry and demoralized all over again. "Goodbye... I guess."

He turned and started heading for the exit. But the conflict went on in his head, following him, as his shadow followed his wayward feet.

" _I fell down some stairs."_

" _You don't have any stairs."_

" _I DO!"_

As much as Zim had been his enemy and a living nuisance over the years, he was alarmed at the grief he felt. For such a long time now, there'd only been the two of them, and Dib intuitively knew he wouldn't have made it this far alone in life without the alien.

And now, because of Zim, Clara had run out on him. He may never get her back.

Dib realized now that this was the lowest point in his life, lower than he'd ever been.

Even so, Zim's desultory manner/ghost/memory came back into his head, as it often did when he was at a turning point, or at some insane crossroad:

" _Dib stop! You don't turn your back on me, Dib! You promised me you wouldn't!"_

" _You're an alien. And you believe in promises?"_

" _Because of you, I'm half deaf."_

" _It was an accident. You can't hold it against me your whole life."_

He braked at the elevator and looked round, guilty he'd face the Irken, or some nightmarish representative for his about-to-be-committed-crimes. But he was alone in the base. There was no one to chase him, no one to tell him otherwise.

No one to take his hand.


	15. Level 9

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	16. Clara's Recourse

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

First, the bad news.

I finished it. I finished the thing.

50 chapters. 50. (Don't worry, they won't all be submitted! Nowhere near! I'm aiming to upload 25/30 only so think yourselves lucky!)

This originally was supposed to be only some 60/90 pages long and a side project after I completed Debacle Rewrite. Then I married the sonofabitch. Now it's done, and I cried. And it haunted me for weeks afterwards. This will be the story I am retiring with. I don't think there will be any more after this.

On with the good news: Dear **Weevmo/Mechabite** has done it again and drawn beautiful art. I keep going back and looking at them like, every day. Is that normal? Oh gosh I wish I could link the art on here for everyone to see. Urm, I guess, just try typing; 'Saving Zim' or 'Darkgunslinger' or 'Weevmo' on Tumblr? I suppose that's the best way to see them. But gorgeous, touching artwork that gives me the tingles every time I think about it. You have got to see them! They really bring the story to life. And I dedicate this chapter to her, it's the least I can do. I don't know what I've done to deserve this art! All I've done is splurge with self-indulgent writing! It's just as well I didn't keep this story to myself. Otherwise I would never have been blessed with someone's else's gift. Ah, Weevmo, how do you do the characters so perfectly?

Thanks to everyone for sticking with this story! It'll be worth your while! My keyboard was on fire the whole time I was writing this, even to the very end!

So, without further ado, here is the next chapter!

* * *

 **Orion**

Hi there Orion! No problem! I LOVE replying! I appreciate all your support and I value your opinion. It does get quite scary when a fic like this starts getting so much attention! Ha! But yes, I LOVE older Dib and Zim! There's something I just can't explain. But there is something so fun in their chemistry. It's quite addictive. ^^ Also, thanks so much for your review! Don't forget to check out the 'Fudgekin' oneshot! It's about as mad as you'd expect from someone like me! Who gave me a pen to write this madness? XD Poor Zim! Don't worry too much: things may surprise you yet!

 **moops**

I know right! I think Gir is in purgatory right now! Tacos!

 **Guest**

Ooh gosh, guilty confession: here I come! I removed chapter 15: The wire. And put it back in now before I get executed by the readers. I am sorry! XD I removed a little more too. Not much. Zim did kinda... die at one point. (don't tell anyone! It never happened! *wink wink*)

 **TheisticSantaist**

LOL gotta admit I did kinda put Zim in the corner with no room to stretch his legs. XD It did look bad. Thank god for... rinuh! (you'll find out!) XD (wink wink)

 **Anonymous**

Aww thank you! I take that to heart. I try. I try so hard. And when I write for myself, I write for the fun of it. Then I upload the thing, and get scared. XD But your feedback helps me, a lot. Thank you for your support. It means so much. I just write so much stupid detail that I hope everyone can keep up! XD

 **Guest**

Hi there and THANK YOU! It's sudden out-of-the-blue comments like yours that shine, and motivate me 100%. And comments like yours always, ALWAYS reassure me that I've made the right decision to be submitting this. Honestly, I think you'll be enjoying this through and through.

 **Guest**

You want more? You getting hungry? Oh man here ya go! Quick! Eat the chapter! I don't want you to starve! Lol! Thank goodness I wrote the Fudgekins oneshot! That'll keep you going, right? XD

* * *

 **CHAPTER 16 (18): Clara's Recourse ( & The Wire)**

 **xxx**

 **The Past**

 _"Okay class, today I want you pairing up with a partner. This will make the lesson more fun and practical. Jimmy, stop giggling over there. Yes, I can see you."_

 _Dib groaned._

 _He hated pairing up. It would have been okay if he had had a best friend that was exclusively his to share, but as it was, he had no friends at all. Even in the early start of freshman year he had made no connections with anyone. His status at being a 'freak' and 'being crazy' seemed to have followed him from SKOOL, and all the kids knew to avoid him as if his passion for the paranormal was hugely offensive. And he could see why. Everyone else was into cosmetics, boyfriends or girlfriends, the latest pop singers, celebrities and the newest Pokémon craze. No one was interested in factual stuff._

 _So, whenever they were paired up, he was left out. It made him feel isolated. And he wasn't the only one. Zim naturally suffered the same ostracism. He too was an outcast, but he took it gladly, having not wanting to be even a foot closer than necessary to a 'dirt monkey.' He sneered at whoever looked at him, clear murder in his replica eye contacts. So when they were the only two without a partner once again, they were inevitably paired up by the ignorant teacher, Mr. Blake._

 _With great displeasure, Zim made his way over to Dib's desk and sat next to him, grimacing all the while as they had in biology._

 _"Now class," Mr. Blake continued while everyone else settled down with his or her partner, "today we are continuing our topic on literacy. Now I know not everyone is into story-telling, but before the age of technological gizmos, TVs, games, and even before books and paper, story-telling was the main source of entertainment."_

 _Dib felt sweaty and uncomfortable. Zim was literally five inches away from him, and his skinny, pink-sleeved arms were resting on his desk. Being this close meant that he could hear him breathing, and smell his distinct odour. It made him sick with disgust._

 _From Zim's neck, he noticed him wearing a necklace. This was most unusual. And Dib glared at it, without comment, trying to summarise in his own head what it was for. Zim noticed him staring, and glared back with cold hatred._

 _"Now," Mr. Blake started handing out sheets of paper to each group, "I want you, as a pair, to write about three major aspects of good story-telling. I will write them up on the board. These three things are: relatable characters, a good plot, and a memorable ending. These three things are what make a good story. I want you to write about why they are so important, and I want you to use examples from other books you have read about."_

 _Dib and Zim got a single sheet of paper to share between them._

 _Mr. Blake wrote the three things on the black board, while the rest of the class ducked their heads and started scribbling down answers._

 _Dib knew he'd have to do all the work. Zim didn't read books. Didn't even know what the fuck a story was._

 _"You humans learn such useless... uh... uselessness." Zim commented dryly, "No wonder your race is so backwards. Stories. Ha. Bunch of dumb fucks." Sometimes he could get away with saying the nastiest things, because he whispered them so quietly._

 _"Hey! As a matter of fact, story-telling enhances language! And the imagination! And history!" Dib proclaimed angrily. He knew that defending the human race was kinda pointless. No one would vouch for Dib and Zim didn't care. If anything, the Elite found Dib's defensiveness to be quite amusing._

 _"Ha! I'd like to see you try and reason your way through an Irken missile! Or imagine your way through a war! You fucking dirty pigs are too DIRTY and senseless! Learning such dirt!" And he began to laugh._

 _Dib pushed him. Zim didn't go very far. The seat held him in, but he viciously slammed his boot heel down on Dib's toes, causing the boy to loudly scream out in pain._

 _"Dib!" Mr. Blake turned round from the board to give him one of his disapproving stares. "I see you are not taking this lesson seriously. Go and stand in the corridor!"_

 _"But... Zim! He!"_

 _"I said go and stand in the corridor! You want a detention too?"_

 _Dib huffed and left his desk. Zim was grinning victoriously._

 _And so he stood in the quiet, chilly corridor with his back pressed up against the wall._

 _He was getting scared of Zim. It hadn't been that long since he'd struck him with that PAK leg because he'd stolen his P.E shirt, and the nerves in his arm hadn't quite healed. The alien had penetrated the bone, and he had had to wear his arm in a cast for three months. Even with the cast removed, it had left a nasty, white-star shaped scar that he would forever wear. And Zim was getting more aggressive and surer of himself. Why this aggression, he asked himself?_

 _Well, for a start, Dib had grown, and Zim had taken great offense. Also, Zim seemed less afraid of humans. Each day he pushed the boundary a little more to see what he could get away with. And the alien was being bullied by the taller kids. This added to his hatred. Fuel for the fire, as they say._

 _And Dib was frightened that Zim may go too far, and murder a child, or even Dib, maybe without even realizing it at first. Simply because Zim got so caught up in himself sometimes, and overreached, not checking his own perimeter of control until it was too late. That PAK episode was only one mishap that Dib had suffered. What if Zim did it again? After all, wasn't Zim just a tantrum-fuelled toddler with weapons? He doubted Irkens were ever taught morals, or the value of life. So Zim had to hold himself back daily, reining-in his own indoctrinated aggression. And he had to release it sometimes._

 _But that was okay. Dib had something planned, something he had been planning while he lay in his hospital bed, recovering from his latest Irken-incurred injury. After all, what else could he do with his time other than plan his revenge? Their games were like this, had been since their early SKOOL years. They had to one-up each other, their spate of retribution getting more and more hurtful each time until one of them pulled out._

 _But regardless of 'the games,' something had to be done. Zim had gone too far, nearly killing him for simply taking his shirt._

 _And instead of getting Zim into trouble, he'd take the matter into his own hands, and show Zim that he was just as dangerous._

 _An eye for an eye, right?_

 _After five minutes of standing out in the corridor and feeling like a moron, Mr. Blake stepped outside with his arms crossed in front of his chest. "Do you feel like coming back into my classroom, Dib? And not causing such a loud fuss?"_

 _He was about to argue, insinuating that it was all Zim's fault, when the words died on his tongue. No matter what he would say, the teacher would just look at him in pity, and chalk it up to his usual craziness. "Yes, sir." He said with as much self-control as he could muster._

 _"Very good." And he led him back into the classroom._

 _As usual, Zim still had that victorious smirk all over his ugly face._

 _Later that day, the sun was shining brightly. It was a gorgeous summer afternoon. The sky was a low, deep blue and the playing field as a profound verdant green. On the air came the smell of pollen, freshly cut grass, and honeysuckle. Kids were buying lolly pops from the ice-cream van parked outside the school gates, and the lollies were melting as quickly as the kids could eat them._

 _Because Zim generally waited for the mass of kids to leave school grounds so that he wouldn't have to get pushed and pulled around, Dib got ahead of him on the way home. The appliance had been hidden away in a back alley, covered in tarp and bits of cardboard against a brick wall. When it was folded up, it was harmless and looked like wooden trash. But opened up and triggered, and it was as dangerous as a guillotine._

 _It was a simple, crude device, if a little barbaric and not the usual magnificence of his typical devices. His father would have looked at it and shaken his head, for it looked more like something a farmer had cobbled together, than the great scientist's esteemed son._

 _Hot and sweaty from the blazing sun, Dib wrenched it out of the shadows and began to unfold it. It wasn't very big and it was light, about five feet wide and two feet long. Zim liked to come home using the same route – he was often as predictable as a clock. The wires were long, and barbed, and were the trickiest to set. If he prematurely triggered it on himself, he could lose an eye or a finger. So he set it like he was setting a mantrap, pinning both sides down until the wires lay neat and formidable in the afternoon sunlight. And they were as sharp as knives._

 _Zim would no doubt see it, so Dib had to grab his attention somehow._

 _Removing his jacket, he pinned it on the wall opposite the trap._

 _He checked his wristwatch._

 _He had cut it close._

 _Zim would be along in about two minutes._

 _He dived behind a pile of rubbish, and tried to stop giggling. If it worked, Zim would think twice before crossing him. Heck, it might even kill him. Wouldn't that be sweet?_

 _The wind started to pick up, as if often did during the late afternoon._

 _Dib waited, and waited some more. Even without his jacket, he sweated, and his knees started to cramp up. He dared not move, in case Zim was moments away. And then, shortly, he could hear him ranting to himself as he grew closer._

 _"Stupid homework! I can't believe it! What a load of old koot! To think that I, Zim, has to do it! To think! An Invader! Wasting time with homework!"_

 _Dib held his breath, sweating even more._

 _Yeah, rant Zim! Don't pay any attention to where you're walking! You stupid asshole!_

 _Unbeknownst to Dib, who was still hiding, Zim saw the jacket hanging on the brick wall, but he could not see the wire. He saw the wooden frame of course, and he just saw it was another pile of trash. But the sun had slanted down in the sky, catching the wires at an angle so that it glared so brightly Zim couldn't even look at it. Irken eyes were twice as sensitive to light than human eyes._

 _"The Dib?" He snapped, eyeing the jacket warily, "Why did he leave..."_

 _The wind blew harder down the throat of the alleyway, knocking Zim's wig from his head._

 _Breaking from his goose-step, he went to run after the wig, and his left boot hit the wire._

 _Dib had not miscalculated the wire's trajectory. The barbs sprung taut, brutally ensnaring Zim's right hand, chest and throat. It also snagged Zim's left antenna. He let up a harrowing squeal that was too high-pitched to be a mere cry of pain. And it was a sound Dib had never heard Zim emit before. It was like listening to a pig screaming in agony. The sound was so terrifying in fact, that Dib was actually rooted to the spot behind his pile of rubbish, too afraid to see what he had done._

 _He could hear thrashing, like he had caught a fox in a snare, and then more disturbing shrieks that made his ears ring._

 _Unable to suffer it any longer, Dib broke from cover to see what he had done._

 _Zim lay in the wire's hold, his claws scrabbling against the cement pavement, his legs kicking weakly as if he was in the throes of a heavy convulsion. His eyes were pinned shut, his body tensing. At first Dib couldn't see what the problem was. There was no blood, no amputated legs. No nothing in fact, to explain Zim's violent distress._

 _Zim's screams died utterly and he lay there, his right antenna diving up and down as pain poured down him._

 _"Z-Zim...?" As he approached him, he saw the problem. The Irken's left antenna was wrapped up in the barbed wire. As Zim pulled and thrashed, the wire gripped all the tighter. The barbs had sunken around his chest, squeezing down on his ribs, and blood was dripping from his neck._

He might die. _He thought in bewilderment and one part uncertain relief._ It's causing him this much distress!

 _Zim's PAK suddenly exploded into life, and a strut emerged, firing blindly. It took Dib a moment too late to realize that it was a gun of some kind. But the weak plasma bolt missed whatever Zim's target was, and it hit Dib's jacket, turning it into shreds._

He's using it in public!

Well, good! This is what I wanted! No, this is better than what I wanted! He's disabled! Someone's gonna see this! I'm going to be famous!

Just walk away then! Turn your back on him.

It's over at last!

I've won!

I don't need to be afraid anymore!

 _Something glistened in the hot sun, something pink. Dib approached it, and picked it up. It was a necklace. Zim had been wearing it earlier in class. Hanging from the broken chain was a vial._

 _Believing it to be to some evil, preordained device to conquer the world, Dib slipped it into his pocket for safe keeping. It was his now._

 _"So long, Zim."_

 _He did turn his back, but before he had even taken one step, he heard a grunted, weak yelp behind him. "D-Dib... no... p-please... d-dun't... dun't turn... yer b-back on m-me... Be a f-fucking man!"_

 _He faced him again and rolled up his shirt sleeve to reveal his penitence: the scar. "I'm getting you back! For nearly killing me with one stroke of your evil spidery leg things!"_

 _Zim managed to open one lilac eye. Then he shut it again when another stroke of pain exploded in his head and chest. Everything was in overdrive: his organs, his PAK, his senses._

 _"Go on!" Dib menaced, "Save yourself! Go on! Just cut the wire! It isn't so hard! Or are you so pathetic you can't even do that?"_

 _Zim tried to jab a claw forwards to find the wire. But the pain made him blind. His hearing had been severed in half. And he had no orientation. The antennae helped his balance, his stability. Without them, he was as good as finished. Even if he had found the wire, a barbed splint had cut straight through the delicate mesh of his feeler, causing all his nerve-endings to go haywire. Each struggle made the other wires cut steadily deeper into his throat and ribs._

 _The PAK was his strength and his weakness._

 _But the antennae were his Achilles' heel._

 _Zim stopped struggling as his body reached its limit. Blood capillaries burst from extreme blood pressure. His muscles cramped from the constant blast of adrenaline. His PAK tried to override the pain: the overexertion of its host's organs. But because the problem could not be rectified, the PAK was stuck in a loop. Where the wires cut deeper, blood was now falling._

 _And Dib could not stand the sight of blood. It made him feel sick, even if it was not his own, and it wasn't red._

 _Now Dib was approaching him. With the last scrap of strength, the ensnared invader tried to bite him, claw him, anything. His PAK was focusing too hard on keeping him alive. It had stopped trying to target the trap._

 _He was in purgatory until his organs gave out._

Trapped. Trapped by Irken design.

 _"D-Dib... worm... don't... don l-leave m-me..."_

 _His eyes had rolled to the back of his skull and he suddenly found breathing to be an enormous struggle. He was lying in blood. What Dib said now meant nothing to him._

 _The Irken thought he heard some rustling, and some cursing. His world had gone dark, and even as he rested, no longer trying to escape the trap._

 _He heard sounds, cutting sounds, like a saw grinding against wood. He had flopped uselessly to his side, the wires bejewelled in emerald._

 _"Zim! Zim! You're free! Look at me! I've got you out, Zim! Look at me!"_

 _He tried to open his eyes. Tried to raise himself up._

 _Dib continued to lament. "I'm sorry, okay? If I promise to never do this again, will you leave me alone? I swear to every God out there that I promise! I'll never do anything like this ever again! Now look at me! Please just look at me! I'm sorry! I was scared! I'm just a kid!"_

Why do you care, Dib worm? Why did you change your mind at the last minute? Are you frightened of enduring me, and yet frightened of being alone?

Humans are such... a paradox.

 _His hearing, he noticed, was completely gone on his left side. And even with his eyes closed, he could sense the world spinning and spinning. He didn't know which way was up, and where north and south was anymore._

 _He cracked open one eye. His PAK was regaining control and sending out chemicals into his brain to try and repair the damage._

You saved me. Why?

We... hate each other. I've tried to kill you.

 _He was not looking up into sunlight. He was in shadow, and he was lying on something soft and warm. When he regained a clearer focus, he realized he was looking up into Dib's tear-stained face. The human was so young. Too young for psychological battles and deadly wars. Dib was too infantile. Too stupid. Humans were not as hardened as Elites, and therefore Dib did not harbour the cold apathy needed to kill._

 _Across from him, the trap lay five feet away. Part of his antennae was still hooked to the teeth of the wire. He swore he could feel part of the feeler hanging down against his head. Broken. Swaying in the breeze like a swing._

 _"Zim! I was so angry, okay! And you're... you're an alien! What else was I supposed to do?" He was still crying. Like he had hurt a friend, and not his nemesis. "I wanted you dead! Now I... now I don't know! Control and power are terrible things, Zim! It's ruining us! I... I don't want to be a murderer! I almost killed you! I feel so sick!"_

 _He was a child after all. Mortality was an adult's thing. Not a child's. Dib had come to realize too late what it meant to have murdered another. It would stain his soul for the rest of his life. An adult may have viewed this differently, but Dib was just a child._

 _Zim tried to sit up. The world steeped to the right._

 _He had no balance. And the world sounded strange with just one antenna to perceive that sound. The wires have left deep, bloody lines in his sides. Perhaps in a day, they'd heal over. But his antenna would not._

 _"I'm so sorry!" Dib kept repeating. "But I saved you! Don't get mad! Please don't try to kill me! I got you out!"_

 _He pressed his claw flat to the ground and lifted himself up into a sitting position. Then he tucked one leg under him, and did the same with the other. Once he had achieved vertical-height, he took his first baby-step, and walked straight into the brick wall next to him._

 _His head was spinning like he was on a pain-soaked carousel. The nerve endings in his broken antenna were still discharging._

 _"I... I didn't mean to go so far!" Dib tried to hold him still before he walked into another wall. "I swear to you I'll never turn my back on you again! Just promise me you'll never go so far either in our games, okay?"_

 _"Sounds... s-sounds like a d-disgusting alliance." The very thought of it made him sick._

 _"Yeah. I guess it does. But it doesn't have to be forever."_

 **xxx**

 **Present Day**

Clara was frightened.

Ever since she had got back home and then gone to work, she was in such shock that she spoke to no one about what she had seen.

She couldn't concentrate when she was supposed to be writing up a report on unusual Jersey Devil sightings, and she didn't listen to Gary's idle conversations. She kept dipping in and out of her own thoughts. Several times she walked up to her boss's office, ready to knock on the door and report Dib. But seconds later she'd change her mind and sit blankly at her desk, staring at her files. She even yanked off her engagement ring, and thought of chucking it in the bin as anger and betrayal consumed her, only to slip it back onto her finger. She repeated the action another two times. The second time she actually threw the ring into the bin, and then went to get up for some coffee.

When she came back, coffee cup in hand, she wrangled it from the rubbish and once again slipped it back onto her finger. She loved Dib, and perhaps still did, even though thinking about him just made her angry and sad. Across the room, Gary was watching her suspiciously at his desk. When she caught him staring, he docked his head down and pretended to go back to his typing.

Clara was no alien enthusiast. For all she knew, it had been a fake model: a prop devised by her fiancé. But he was too serious, and looked a mess. Plus, it really did look like Zim, only, not the Zim she had come to know. And that's what she wanted to believe. Only, there was no getting away from what she had _really_ seen.

All this time she had been conversing with an alien.

It made her feel frightened and deceived as Dib knew the whole time and hadn't told her until now.

She had sat and eaten with the alien. Given it medicine. Spoken to it. Got close to it. Goodness only knows what diseases it harboured, what bacteria. Where had it even come from? What had it seen? What did it know?

Again she was moved to stand outside Clifford's office. She couldn't hold the knowledge inside. As she stood and waited while Clifford had strong words with the colleague inside, she twiddled her fingers, wondering what would happen to the alien when the police would find it. She began to think of imprisonment, and of animals in cages. She had always been against zoos. She knew they were educational to adults and children alike, and she understood of logic of breeding and how vital it was to keep a species alive when they were extinct in the wild, but she didn't like wild animals being prisoners their whole lives. Zim was so intelligent, so unusual. It explained a lot of his previous behaviour, and she oftentimes noticed how very scared he was of her. Now she knew why.

And Dib used to go to school with it. Like it was... human.

It wasn't like the aliens she had imagined at all. She always believed they'd be tall, ugly and deadly.

The colleague exited the room through the door and Clifford called her in.

Feeling pale and weak, she entered. He offered her a chair at his desk, which she took, only to hide the shaking of her legs.

"So, no Dib today?" He asked casually. Clifford wasn't a very nice man. He did his job, and had two kids at home, but he was a bit of a womanizer and hated people with opinions. He liked to think he was the only one who deserved to have likes and dislikes.

"He's... uh... at home." She began. To think that Dib had an alien all to himself to study and to learn from was selfish. The world needed to know about it. The world needed its secrets to advance in technology and medicine. The very knowledge of life outside of Earth was enlightening enough. Who knew how many of these little spacemen were out there, planning an invasion?

But strangely, she had never felt any hostility from Zim at all. In fact, he was always more afraid of her than she could ever be with him. Whenever she so much as smiled at him, she noticed him shivering like a leaf. And he had been sick. Coughing and coughing like he had pneumonia.

Dib had been pleading with her to help this creature that had been masquerading as a human, and it made her feel angry again. How long was Dib going to keep 'Zim' a secret if this accident had never happened? She thought back on the bloodied wound in the thing's side, and a part of her had wanted to have a closer look. But she had repelled against the very idea of actually touching an alien.

She found though, that she was a little excited at having seen one.

"Clara? You seem... distracted. Is everything all right?"

She scrunched her hands on her lap. If she divulged this information to Clifford, she'd never see the alien again. It would be confiscated, and become government property. And Dib would be a national villain. With one word, she'd ruin both their lives.

She couldn't.

She remembered handing Zim the cough medicine in the supermarket, and noticing how very shaky and sick he looked. She had wanted to put her arms around him.

 _But he has these... strange... red eyes. I'm not sure I like them._

"Clara?" Clifford repeated, looking as concerned as a selfish man could. "Is there something you want to tell me? You look as white as a sheet."

She couldn't deny that. The information weighed heavily upon her and it was eating her up inside. She felt like a criminal already for having no disclosed this any earlier. Even Gary had been speaking of chasing an alien around town last night, and she now suspected that it involved Zim. All morning, gossip had been flying around, with Gary fuelling the speculations and facts until everyone was picturing this alien as a powerful suburban monster that killed children in the night.

"Dib! That idiot! Trying to call off the cops!" Gary had kept saying earlier that morning. "Telling them it was some fucking hoax! I saw it with my own damn eyes! I should have beaten it to death with my umbrella while I had the chance! At least then I'd have its corpse as evidence! Here! Look at the picture the cop drew! Look at how demonized it is!"

Luckily not many took Gary's story or his drawn picture seriously, but there were a few who'd also heard rumours of a green creature around town and they added their theories until Gary sounded like he was teaching them some new gospel. And they ate up every damn word he said.

Most however, laughed at Gary. They wanted to believe in aliens as much as the next person, but Dib was a respected field agent, and if he had said that it was a hoax, then so be it: which must mean that Gary was doing it for the drama and the attention, which made Gary very, very angry.

Now Clara was about to cement Gary's story into the history books for good. And as much as the world needed to know about the alien, she felt guilty. Prison bars and zoo enclosures came to mind again. And she'd lose Dib forever. He was the sweetest man she knew. He was a quiet, reserved kind of guy, who acted like he carried a lot of secrets and responsibility around. He was gentle, and a little sad, as if there was a gap in his life he could never fill. And she had wanted to fill it.

Clara suddenly stood up from the chair and profusely apologized. "I wanted to tell you that the reports are done and that I'm feeling a little under the weather. Can I go home?" She felt and sounded like a little girl. And in all honesty she was feeling vulnerable. She wanted to find out a little more by herself, before she came to any concrete decisions.

Clifford looked shocked, as if he expected her to say something else. "Well, you do look pretty pasty. Okay. You can go home. Leave the reports on your desk and I'll swing by later and pick them up. Just rest, you hear?"

She nodded and left the office, still shook up, even though she had told him nothing. Gary passed her on the way out, and he was looking her up and down. There was no reason for him to suspect her of anything, yet even so, he was suspicious.

"Where's that Dib of yours?" He asked. His tone was as aggressive as his expression.

"Sick. At home." Was the first excuse that came to mind. She was about to go, done with the brief conversation when he grabbed her arm. It was no light touch either.

"Sick is he? Cowering away is he? After embarrassing me in front of my peers? I know what I saw! Why on Earth would he try to stop me? Is it because he wants the alien for himself? Or is it because he's a lunatic?"

"Let go!"

He realized he was holding onto her too tightly, and he relinquished his grip. "Here! Look at the picture! Tell that Dib he's got another thing coming! It isn't over between us! Tell him that!"

She grabbed her handbag, ducked her head low and left the office in a hurry, so much so that she wanted to break out into a run. She didn't, and stayed reserved until she got into her purple sedan. For the longest time she sat behind the steering wheel, staring down at her phone on the front passenger seat.

She did not think she was ready to see the alien again.

She wasn't even sure if she was ready to see Dib again.

A phone call was better; easier. That way she didn't have to confront him face to face.

But what was Dib doing with an alien? Why had it even gone to school with him? Why did it fraternize with human society? Why was it even here? And were there more of them?

 _What do I even say to Dib?_

Her fingers hit the phone numbers almost on their own accord. She was worried Dib might not even pick up, once he saw her name on the screen.

What did the alien even do? Did it breathe, like humans? How did its body function? What colour was its blood? Did it believe in religion? Did it understand their idioms? Their humour? What sex did it have? Did it even have genitalia? Did it carry new and deadly diseases?

The ring tones started, and she so wanted to end the call and hang up before Dib could answer.

She tried to visualise Zim at the booth in the Rooster, and how very nonthreatening he was. She remembered how hard he was finding it to socialise. She thought he was just an introvert at the time. Now she knew. And now she had accidently started labelling him as an 'it.'

Dib picked up, but on the last dial tone. She almost thought he wasn't going to answer and had hoped he wouldn't. Clara wasn't very good at confrontation, even if it was just a phone call.

"Clara?" He began. He sounded vaguely demoralised, as if he'd just been to a funeral.

"Yeah." She shakily replied, feeling like a little girl again. She noticed that the signal was a little crackly.

"I'm so, so sorry." He was saying, sounding miserable. "Did you... did you call them? The authorities? Are they on their way?"

"No. I... I haven't."

"Have you... have you told anyone?"

"No, Dib. I haven't."

"Why not?"

She wasn't even sure herself. She felt bad, as if she was committing a crime. "How... how is Zim?" There was a pause. She thought he wasn't going to answer. "Dib? Is everything okay?" Still no answer. She could hear him breathing, so she knew he was still there.

"Clara, you'd better hang up. I know it's a massive shock. And I understand. I don't want to ruin your life. This is my mess to clean up, not yours. I'm just... real sorry I kept this from you. I... I just didn't want you to run away. All my life people have abandoned me... because of Zim. And it's still happening. I should have got used to it by now... and I guess... I guess I never can. I know I should hand Zim over to the government. It's the right thing to do for mankind. But... but I just can't... I'd die from the guilt."

Dib's confession sounded so sad and so heartfelt. She kind of wished she had approached him now, face to face, instead of having this conversation on the phone. "Dib, you've got to explain everything to me. I can't promise you what I'll do, but I need you to be honest with me. No more secrets."

"Okay. I can do that."

"And you're a fool for hiding this from me. It scares me too. I always wanted to believe aliens existed, even as a child. But the more I grew up, the more impossible it seemed. And if aliens did exist, we, as a species, aren't ready for them. But... but I want to see it... I mean, I want to see 'him!' He's... he's not a monster... is he? He's... he's not dangerous at all?"

"I think it's just easier to explain if you come and see him. I do understand if you change your mind. I'm currently at his house. You'll need his address."

"What... what happened to it?" She mentally cursed herself, forgetting to refer to Zim being male again.

"Just come over if you can, Clara. I need to see you. I think I'll go mad if I don't."

"O-Okay." She was shivering again with anxiety and nerves. She was frightened of the unknown: frightened of Zim. But she did not know why. There was no real reason, no real source for her unexplained fear. She supposed it was because Zim was now an unknown entity: the veil of his disguise had blown away completely, revealing his true alien nature.

And he had red, demon eyes.

After ending the call, Clara started up her engine, thinking how silly she was to be afraid of something so small, and clearly wounded.

Clara pulled out of the parking lot, still undecided as she headed up the freeway towards the city.

Could you even be friends with something from outer space? Wasn't it taboo? It seemed to insult the very fabric of reality, even nature itself.

Well, it explained the green skin, and his ridiculously small size. Either way, Dib had a lot to answer for.

Before arriving at his place, she stopped off at the National Library and went straight to the sci-fi aisle containing all relevant information on extraterrestrials. She had never really bothered about aliens before, believing them to be too fantastical, too unreal, as much as she wanted to believe in them. She was always a daughter of realism, like Dib, wanting to prove the fakes from real sightings, but only so that she could then study zoology.

She hunted through the shelves, pulling out books that caught her interest. Eventually she had a steadily growing collection of books under her arm.

Satisfied, she hauled them to the front desk.

Once she had the books on loan, she took them back to the car and, sitting behind the steering wheel in the parking lot, she flicked through each book, trying to determine Zim's nature within the blocks of text and fantastical pictures drawn by real-life sightings and witness records.

But each supposed creature she read about, or saw in an image was not in any way close to resembling Zim's outward appearance. They were all too humanoid, or too monstrous, with tentacles, fins or a multitude of arms. Frustrated, she deposited the books to one side and tried to look 'Zim' up on the internet by typing in his physical appearance. Green skin. Red eyes. Small in stature. But nothing rewarded her.

She looked out her car window, knowing that the best way to find out was to simply return to Dib and confront the unknown.

* * *

 **Dib07:** I wanna keep it as a weekly series I guess? Because that sounds fun and I've been doing it pretty consistently so far. Let me know if you want more or less. I value ALL of your opinions. Again, I could not do this without you all! I MEAN IT!  
So I guess I'll see you next week with a new chapter. Have an awesome day!


	17. I'm Scared Too

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

You know, there was something I was gonna say, and I have forgotten! Urm, here's the next update. I really hope the detail and past events aren't getting too confusing. I really, REALLY do. I think about it a lot. I don't want anyone to get inundated with the vastness of this novel.

Thanks to YOU, the reader, reviewer and fan. The only reason I keep updating is because of your support and love for this story. It is time consuming, but it is very, VERY rewarding. I am enjoying every moment after returning to ffn.

* * *

 **moops**

Heh, well, here you are! I hope you like this one too! And I'm chuffed you love Clara since there hasn't been much about her, or me building her character etc. I wanted to do it in nice, easy portions lol.

 **RhiannonsaurusRex** (Saving Zim)

I couldn't PM you to reply to you, so I'm writing my reply on here, if that's okay! After all, your review was very sweet and I really appreciate it! Thanks for giving me a nod towards the maturity of the writing, etc. As for all 50 chapters, well... I suppose I shall try? There is a lot I could have deleted from this chapter, and I am keeping it all in. The guilt is real! I feel it every time I think about deleting portions. I just hope the past events, and detail isn't too much! And thanks again, I am super happy to be contributing to a fandom I cherish.

 **RhiannonsaurusRex** (Fudgekin Oneshot)

I'll reply to this review on here as well if that's okay, since the story was just a oneshot and I won't be updating it to reply to you. You know what, after you gave me a list of nicknames, you're right! Dib is merciful to Zim when it came down to it! Dib could have quipped him with anything! Love it or lump it, Zim! And gosh... I've never suffered a burst eardrum, but I've had an ear infection before. It is NOT NICE. I've known people to faint from poor equilibrium. But yeah, it was a sweet, shortish kind of peek into their lives that was a bit of a calmer, more relaxed pace. So anyways, here's some more to keep you topside!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 17 (19): I'm Scared Too**

 _"So... this is where you're gonna live?"_

 _As he stood there in the gentle moonlight that silhouetted his form in hues of interchanging silver and darkness, shadowing him in a mosaic of light, he frowned. Did he just hear... disapproval? Of course, he should have expected nothing else coming from him._

 _This was the problem when you had no other friends, human or otherwise._

 _In one hand he held a length of rope. In the other he held a duffel bag that contained his paranormal gear from work._

 _The house stood solemn before them like some dark, obscene presence that had been put there to specifically frighten them away rather than welcome them in._

 _A soft wind stirred the leaves, causing them both to shiver apprehensively._

 _"Yeah. My father's already taken it off the market and given the retailers a sizable down payment. I can move in now, if I like."_

 _Zim cast his lilac eyes up at the house that loomed over them, a house that painted them in cold shadow. He gave the old place a soft sneer. "It's creepy." Was his concise deduction as if his wisdom accounted for everything._

 _"I guess. I hope it has ghosts inside. Wouldn't that be cool? Wanna go inside?" Though it was dark, he could see well enough under the pale, yellow light the street lamps gave. Zim folded his arms and stuck his tongue at him. He was sitting on a custom skateboard, with a hole drilled in at the front lip to accommodate the length of rope Dib held. With a tug, the skateboard followed wherever the human went._

 _"No." He replied. "Why would I WANT to go in there? It's dark, dingy, smelly, dirty and UGLY!"_

 _"It might be now, but in a year's time, it'll be warm, snug and bright. It's all right for you. You invaders are just plain lazy. You just press a button and hey presto! You have yourself a ship, or a house, or a microwavable oven!"_

 _"Oh you poor dear. It must be so hard being human." Zim said with relish. But he wasn't smiling when he said it. It was whenever he didn't smile, that Dib grew anxious. "Why are you showing me this..._ place... _anyway?" Zim continued angrily. "Are you trying to prove something to me?"_

 _"Wait, no! I just... I just..."_

 _"Just... WHAT?"_

 _"I just wanted to show you." Dib suddenly felt sad and empty inside. There was so much hatred and anger spilling from Zim in imperceptible waves, and even though he could not see the rage, he could_ feel _it. He thought that spending time with the Elite, even a little bit of time, might loosen that tight ball of abhorrence and misery in Zim that had congested within him like rot. But the more he tried to push the Irken into a form of sociable etiquette; Zim seemed to tighten up all the more until his mind and emotions were bricked in by an impenetrable wall._

 _Dib often stopped and asked himself why he was bothering. Then he looked down at Zim, and even though it was hidden under the wig, he envisioned the dangling loose thread of an antenna, and the reason no longer needed to be questioned._

 _So the human perked himself up, his optimism following suit, (for the peaceful night was too beautiful to be marred by a sulking Irken) and he held onto the length of rope as he walked over to the front door. Zim sat hunched over, arms folded as the skateboard followed the human antagonist._

 _He had a spare set of keys for this new place. His 'moving in' date wasn't until Saturday, but he was still free to go in and look at the place before the official day came. But, regardless, he had a swelling emotion of pride and of independence._

 _This place would soon be wholly his!_

 _There would be no father and sister to share it with and boss him around. He would finally be a man! In his bachelor pad! Where he could eat what he wanted, when he wanted. He could sleep in front of the TV, or walk around naked if he so chose. Yeah, the place would need a LOT of work. A new lick of paint, new furniture, new drapes and curtains, carpets, etc. But man, what an experience! He was so excited!_

 _He slipped the single silver key into the lock and tried to turn it. The lock was rusty and old, so after a few tries he ended up having to barge into the door with his left shoulder to get it open. Zim just sat there, watching the whole debacle with a snarl on his face._

 _He stood in front of the doorstop. Then looked down at Zim. "I'm going to have to... uh... pick you up."_

 _Zim tucked a claw under the hem of his wig and lifted it up so that his right antenna could flicker upright. "What?" He had not heard him._

 _"I said I'm going to have to pick you up. Unless you can manage the threshold. See? It's a doorstop. The skateboard can't roll over it. It's too steep for its wheels."_

 _Zim looked behind them, down the pathway covered in buttercups and dandelions. "There's no one around. I'll just use my PAK."_

 _"Not risking it, Fudgekins." He hated having to touch him too. Each time he went to do so, he expected to get severely bitten. He was pretty sure, at the back of his mind, that Zim welcomed the idea of maiming him, just to have a little payback. So he endorsed this possibility every time he did anything with his former enemy. It was like playing around with a cobra._

 _Tucking his fingers around the Elite's little ribs and under his arms to try and avoid his jaws, he lifted him up and planted him on the floorboards in the hallway before retrieving the skateboard. Zim was idly looking around at the darkened vista of the place, and that steely look of disapproval returned. "What a dirty little place. I wouldn't even allow Gir to frolic in here. Could you imagine the diseases he would bring back with him?"_

 _Dib just sighed and put the skateboard down beside him so that Zim could sit on it. Then he shut the front door and flicked the hallway light switch._

 _A bare, ugly light bulb that was furry with dust came on, brightening the dusty, barrenness of the hallway. The floorboards beneath them were loose and rickety, and even the skateboard's wheels wobbled upon them as Dib took them through to the next room._

 _It was the kitchen. It was spacious at least, with old, yellowed cupboards, a plain white sink, and an empty slot where the fridge once stood. The linoleum floor was tiled black and white, and it was also dirty with mud stains, dust and old bits of food. While Zim hunched upon the skateboard as if he were trapped on a tiny, tiny island in the middle of an ocean of blood, Dib looked enrapt at the place. He could imagine many, many things._

 _He would have a lovely oak table in the far corner, and a big fridge. The windows overlooked a long garden filled with wondrous secrets, and to the side of the house was a big garage where he could dump Tak's ship and cover the thing in tarp._

 _Dib tried having a go at turning the squeaky faucets at the sink, but all he got in return was a lot of grumbling and banging from the pipes within._

 _At least all the lights were working, even if they had been robbed bare of their shades._

 _"I'm going to check upstairs." Dib said. "You wait here."_

 _Zim grumbled something, but the human was already on his way there, dropping the length of rope and taking the old, creaky steps two at a time. Sure, with the money he was paying for the place, he could have chosen something much nicer, and much more manageable. But he wanted a house with character, in a quiet neighbourhood where he could do the place up from scratch. Zim meanwhile would disapprove of anything Dib picked, simply because none of it was 'Irken' enough._

 _The upstairs rooms were also in the same disarray as the ones downstairs. There was the master bedroom, a guest room and a storage room, a bathroom and a study. The guest bedroom was in the best condition. There was a window on the right that overlooked the overgrown garden and there was plenty of room to dump his things here while he did up the other rooms. But, as he stood there, looking at the bed frame and single closet he got a strange sense of foreboding, and it wasn't the good kind. Maybe it was that brief sense of déjà vu he sometimes got, or the memory of something, but he left the room in a hurry. The rest of the house did not give him the same goose bumps as that guest room._

 _Zim was still on the skateboard when he returned._

 _"Well?" He asked, gesturing out with his arms as he sometimes did when he wanted to make a point. "Is this... nasty place of nastiness to your... liking?"_

 _Dib nodded. "I think so. I know you have no imagination, Zim, but I can turn this place into something."_

 _"Still don't know WHY you bothered to bring me here, wasting MY time." The invader stipulated, looking away, chewing on his anger. Dib rolled his eyes. If he really came out with it, he was pretty sure he'd make Zim even more enraged._

 _He was trying to push Zim into the outside world again, trying to give him that confidence he had evidently lost._

 _Maybe Zim would realize... in time._

 _Or maybe he wouldn't._

 _Suddenly something small, dark and furry scuttled from beneath the old dishwasher and Zim screamed._

 _Dib looked to where the invader was now pointing._

 _"A monster! A monster! In this house!" He croakily yelled._

Yeah. It's called a 'Zim.' _He thought with dry humour. Dib knelt by the dishwasher and looked. When he did, the critter poked out from the counter further down, and skirted across the floor to the hallway. It was a fat, brown rat._

 _Zim huddled onto the middle of the skateboard even more, shaking. "Kill it! Well, don't just stand there! KILL IT!"_

 _Dib started to go after it, with nothing but his duffel bag, but the rat had long gone: disappearing into the empty parlour perhaps, or a hole in the skirting board in the hallway. The floorboards were loose enough to mislay a foot down there, so there was no way Dib would have caught it._

 _"It's gone." He said._

 _"Don't say that! It'll come back!"_

 _"It's just a rat, Zim. I'll lay a humane trap down for it, and take it to the woods up at the National Park. Besides, it's not like you're living here."_

 _Zim seemed to relax a little at this. But he kept looking around his island of skateboard, convinced that the rat would return and have him for supper. To see Zim be scared at something so little made Dib laugh. He couldn't help himself. But then he stopped himself. Zim was gazing sorrowfully down at his feet with a glazed shine in his lilac eyes. He looked like he was about to cry._

 _"Zim..."_

xxx

"...Is everything okay?"

Her cool, very real, very sincere voice cut into his thoughts on the other end of the line. The memory of the house visit sunk down, back into the room where he harboured all of his best memories.

No, everything was not okay. And he wanted to elaborate. Wanted to think some more. But he knew he couldn't.

"Clara, you'd better hang up. I know it's a massive shock. And I understand..." He didn't know what to really say to her. He was miles underground, in a bug's nest full of computers and high-tech wizardry with tubes all over the place in a haphazard fashion that spawned mental confusion and nightmares. And he was done lying to her. They were newly engaged, and if he had a chance with her he had to be play it straight.

Her next reply cheered him up greatly: "...But... but I want to see it... I mean, I want to see 'him!' He's... he's not a monster... is he? He's... he's not dangerous at all?"

"I think it's just easier to explain if you come and see him. I do understand if you change your mind. I'm currently at his house. You'll need his address." He gave it to her, and repeated it just in case.

He could hear as much as feel Gir thumping on the door behind him. He looked to the password screen and scrambled his fingers over the panel buttons for one last attempt, his grief and passion mixing together to unlock the answer.

 _The Treaty._ He typed.

 _ **Password correct. Do you wish to open the containment lock?**_

 _Zim. You are too predictable. This world is rubbing off on you. I am rubbing off on you. You are also becoming too human. I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing._

"What... what happened to it?" Clara asked on the phone.

"Just come over if you can, Clara. I need to see you. I think I'll go mad if I don't."

"O-Okay."

Dib felt like he had been pushed too far. The pressure was on him.

He had seen what mental breakdowns could do, because he had been a reluctant witness to it.

He slipped the phone back into his pocket.

It was done. Whether she would come or not was up to her now.

Gir still hounded at the door, crying and shouting. "Will you let me out? I want some bubblegum! The Earth's core is made out of bubblegum and I want some! Pretty please let me out?"

Dib turned to the little glass panel and shook his head at him. "Sorry, but I won't disobey Zim. He put so many protocols in place, and I know he's old and a bit insane, but... it doesn't feel right, letting you out. You _must_ have done something he didn't like. Like bust his favourite piano? Rip off his wallpaper? Pee on the rug?"

Gir stopped pounding on the door and shook his head. "Maybe it's because I ate everything in the fridge?"

"I'll get to the bottom of it, Gir." He promised. "But right now I have your delusional Master to take care of. See you later."

"No! Come back, big-head! I NEED yous! Bring me bubblegum!"

Dib headed away from the containment room, still marvelling at its size and the sheer audacity of its design despite the echoing calls of Gir chasing him as he walked. He was also slightly menaced by it. If he and Zim were still enemies, he would have been the one in there, not Gir, with no way out. It made him shudder; made him touch the scar on his arm.

"Computer, send me to level 7!"

"The conduit is ready to take you there."

He dashed forwards, and as he ran, Gir's high-pitched screaming continued to chase after him. "Please! Pleasssee come back! I'll be gooooood!"

Paradoxically he felt good for obeying Zim's enigmatic orders, but he also felt guilty for keeping Gir locked up. Gir was just a little robot, who had a limited concept of the world, much like a child's. He could never really achieve anything in this broken state, and he gave Zim such valued company. For it was Gir and Gir alone who had kept Zim going when the Elite had locked himself away in his house after his antenna injury.

So why this level of security? Why such a massive, complex room to hold someone so small and so harmless and innocent?

The conduit took him back to the upper levels as smoothly as before with no signs of any faults. As he waited to reach the appropriate level, he blasted the computer with questions on how best to proceed.

"You say surgery is required. Do I do it in the uh... autodoc or do I need to move him?"

"That is correct. The specialized chamber is next door to the biological repair bay. You must take Master Zim there. You will know when you see it."

"Will you walk me through it?"

"Affirmative."

"And the surgery, why can't you do it? With all your mechanical arms and tubes and tools?"

"Such delicate surgery requires a specialist. I am unequipped to perform refined actions that surgery so requires. I am a militarised computer program, not a doctor."

"So... you mean... I'M going to do the surgery?"

"That is correct."

"No! No I can't! I'm not a doctor! I won't know what I'm doing!" There was no way he was going to go anywhere near Zim's organs. No way. He would end up accidently killing him, and he didn't have the confidence. Just thinking of what might lay ahead made his hands shake uncontrollably. And besides, he knew Zim too damn well. It would be too personal. Too emotional. "Computer! Why can't you just... order a doctor? You know? For Irkens?"

"Ordering 'doctors' as you so foolishly put it is an expensive luxury only superior Irkens are allowed. Zim does not meet the designated height to have access to such benefits."

"Wait? What? Zim has to be a specific height to get... benefits?"

"That is correct." Droned the computer. It actually sounded bored with the human.

Dib punched a wall – any wall – and then punched it again. He didn't care how much the action hurt his knuckles.

Even if he WERE to do the surgery, he couldn't do it on his own. A computer was a computer – it would tick off his progress and issue orders if he could even pass the first step of the process, but it was not real help. How could he manage the blood flow? The emotional trauma? He was not made for this. Maybe if he had never known Zim, and hadn't formed a bond, he may have been able to do the surgery with cold calculation. But he knew this wasn't so.

With weak legs, he knew he had three options before him.

The first option was simply have nature run its course, and let Zim die.

Or he could do the surgery himself.

The last choice he had was to bring in help. He briefly thought of Gaz, and shook his head. Gaz hated Zim. Really hated him. All because the invader had attacked him at school by the R.S hut, and left the scar on his arm. Gaz knew who did it, even when Dib blamed the incident on a shard of glass. So that was no good.

And then there was Clara.

If it all went south, he'd lose the alien, and his fiancée. Perhaps even his own future: for he may spend the rest of his days behind bars.

Was Zim worth the risk?

He thought of the wire, and of keeping the promise. He thought of Zim's foolish quest for happiness.

He wanted Zim to be a part of his family, and be the guardian of his children.

Dib forced himself to keeping walking.

He had work to do, and not a lot of time to do it in.

"God, help me."

xxx

The wind was blowing coldly as though it was carrying dark omens. Even though it was afternoon, the sky was grey and swollen with storm clouds. Drifts of leaves scattered by on the sidewalk, and some of them curled around Clara's ankles before scuttling off with the sweep of the wind.

She had parked her car outside the oddly shaped house as per Dib's instructions. She had come here once before, and recognised the place. When she first saw it, she thought the elongated house belonged in a fancy theme park or theatre. It didn't look real. At least, not in the practical sense. Yet here it was, as brightly coloured as any item in a theme park.

 _Aliens live in houses?_ Was her first wary thought.

Clara walked down the little footpath and tapped three times on the purple door. Like before when she was brought here, she glanced up at the 'Men's' sign with distaste. She, at the time, had thought that Zim was just a crazy and eccentric resident with perhaps enough money to customise things into silly things.

The door opened and Dib looked back at her from the gloom. He couldn't have looked more sheepish and guilt ridden if he'd just straight-up murdered someone. He was also too pale, and looked sickly, as if he hadn't slept in weeks. And his hands were shaking. "Hey there. You came." He said dully, his eyes skittishly looking at hers, only for them to slide away again: too afraid to look at her directly. He did however look briefly over her shoulders, as if spying for men in white coats, or FBI agents or cops, or even Gary. But she was alone.

Because the words were all tied up in her throat, she didn't know what to say, and nothing comprehensible came to mind. So she said nothing at all.

Dib did not challenge this. He merely stepped aside, and welcomed her. "Don't worry." He said, trying to eek up a little weedy smile. "Nothing's going to bite you. You're perfectly safe."

She got her legs working, which in itself was a miracle, and Clara stepped inside. Dib closed the door.

The little home inside carried that same pictorial theme park premise, with its odd choice of colour, and surreal-like walls and furnishings. There was a dramatically pink sofa facing a large TV, a few tables and bookcases, and beyond that, a very clean looking kitchen. In fact, everything was so clean; it almost smelled sterile, as if she had walked into a spotlessly clean factory and not a living room to someone's home.

"Zim hates dust and germs." Dib told her matter-of-factly, watching where she was looking. "He even makes me remove my shoes when I come visiting. Once, I dropped crumbs on the floor, and he freaked out. Like, really freaked out. I had to run and get him a paper bag to breathe into." At the bittersweet memory, he smiled.

Then she looked up, and she couldn't help but cry out at the towering wires and mass of tubes interlinking above them in the gait of the ceiling. It was a miasma of messy intestinal technology as power surged through each link, each length of cable.

Dib regarded Clara above all else, half expecting her to run back for the door to seek freedom. And if she did, he would not blame her. When he was exposed to Zim's alien nature, and his technology, he could easily have been overwhelmed by it as well, but he had been young and reckless, and because of his father, he had always been exposed to superior technology. Clara was far more sheltered, and probably had never contented with the fact that aliens may exist, whereas Dib had always believed.

Clara reverted her gaze back to him, even though she looked spooked.

"Why... why am I even h-here?" She asked, clearly at a loss. "I don't think... I don't know if this is right..."

"You don't have to go any further." Dib reassured. He had no intention of pressuring her; however he did want her to make a choice of her own. "But if you want to take the extra step, I'll guide you. You want to be the second person to ever discover alien life, don't you? And you said you loved animals. He's... well, Zim's more of an ugly bug than an animal... but..."

She nodded, not trusting her voice enough to actually credit her feelings.

Dib nodded in response, and turned to walk towards the bookcase. "Here's the easy access route. Zim's got real bad arthritis and he doesn't like bending his knees or back to get down all his other usual entrances. So we'll use this one."

"E-Entrances?" She stalled, peering at him anxiously.

Dib turned back and smiled apologetically. "Yeah. This house of his used to be a ruse. A setup to conceal the real base beneath. Now this house really does function as a dwelling. I don't think he knows that yet." He reached out a hand for her to take. Above them, the computer remained strangely silent. Dib figured that it was because she was with him, and had not yet challenged her. Or the computer saw her as the 'external aid' and that chasing her away would result in its Master's death. Then the resulting aftermath would be the Fall for Zim, and the ultimate destruction of the computer and the base it resided in.

Clara clasped her sweaty hand in his, and Dib led her towards the bookcase. He thumbed a button, and the bookcase slid sideways on invisible tracks, opening up a good yard of space to slip through. Beyond was a tiny stairwell, lit by purple florescent lighting.

Clara swallowed hard. It reminded her of the rabbit hole in 'Alice in Wonderland.'

"Are you ready?" Dib asked her gently, looking ghostly white in the strange lighting.

She wasn't ready, but she nodded anyway. "Is Zim... waiting for us? Why... why isn't he h-here?" She kept thinking he would jump out at them from anywhere, at any time. It set her nerves on edge and she couldn't stand the suspense. It was almost like she was _stuck_ in a horror movie but the cast were real, as were the monsters. And this was a movie she couldn't pause or stop from the comfort of her living room.

"He's... he's in a bad way." Dib then glanced away from her, as if admitting to it was painful. "He's lying in a cot-like machine. I think he's in a coma. I'm not sure. You saw the wound on his side, right? You saw the blood."

"So he's not going to... scare me?"

Dib shook his head. "No. He's not able to do much of anything anymore." He gazed back into her eyes. "We're going to take it as slow as you like. It's all new. Just hold onto my hand and you'll be fine. I promise." This at least, he could guarantee.

* * *

 **Dib07: Okay, serious note here guys and gals: there is going to be some... surgery coming up in like, 1 or 2 chapters time (I'm too lazy to check). Some of it is quite graphic and I am going to edit it out. For your benefit. That's the only edit I will be making. That's all! ^^ Hope you liked that chapter, and hope it will keep you going. I am REALLY sorry Zim is still out of it in the meanwhile. Don't worry. There is a lot of exciting stuff still to come, with plenty of Zimness. ^^**


	18. Saving Zim

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Oh my goodness: another update! ANOTHER UPDATE! XD STRESSsssssssss!

I edited out a lot of the surgery and hopefully I did it so neatly it won't be noticed. And I cobbled chapters 20 and 21 together. So you have it all, just not the more bloody details. So yes this chapter will be a bit long. However, thank you, THANK YOU for the love, support and massive encouragement. I feel good about updating this every week because of the support. 173 reviews is just... incredible. I don't know why I have so many! WHY? I love you all so, so much. I do. I really do.

Once this story is over, I am going to set aside a special author's note to thank every single one of you. I don't care how long it takes me. I'm doing it.

* * *

 **Orion** (Fudgekin Oneshot)

I know right! What a predicament for him! I thoroughly enjoyed writing what came after and what Dib tried to do. *wink wink* So yes there is more to come regarding Zim's inability to... walk. I cannot wait to upload it! XD

 **Orion** (Saving Zim)

Clara sure traded her sanity in for this one! Yeah, I'm glad she didn't leave too. I know that sounds mad, as I am the author, but it could have gone the other way, and I could have just kept her in the dark about Zim for a lot, lot longer. I had so many ideas at the time, and finally settled on what you are about to read. Re-reading this chapter made me realize why Zim is so damn cute, and that he was made to be a monster, but he can change. He can overcome his own demons, if he has the will to try. Thank you so, so much for reading, and sharing with me your feedback.

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

Heh, I'm not gonna lie, I got a kick out of writing any of the past bits after the wire with Zim and his 'I-can't-walk' mode. There is more to come! Sadly it won't be in this chapter, but we're getting there... slowly! I know, Zim was such a cutie-pie on that skateboard! And Dib sacrificing his time; trying to be a better person by not stooping down to Zim's level. He was doing it out of guilt, and we'll come to that in the story... but yeah that was very fun to write. I could picture it in my head so clearly. Ah there is so much more about it! But I can't... say anything! XD

 _'''Maybe you could add in a bit where they start getting along a bit better, like when they first start going to the "treaty" and talking. Drunk Zim would be a delightful, giggling wreck!'''_

That sounds like a fantastic idea! I never even thought of that! You know what, I'll do it! And I know exactly where to put it in the story! Thank you for dropping in this idea! Omg I cannot wait to get started! Ever since I finished 'Saving Zim' I got really depressed. Adding in a little something will make me feel much, much better and revitalise it for me! Okay... there are a couple of chapters coming up that are going to be filler, and definitely chapter 25 (The Struggle). I was not going to upload that one. But... I'll upload it. You seem really eager and happy to read them, and at least then you have the choice to enjoy it... or not! XD It is a cutesy one. Maybe too... cutesy? Eh. As for my other Zim stories... ah... there is a vent oneshot I wrote called: 'If Only I Could.' That one's a bit dark. What other stories I write won't be uploaded anywhere else. Just on my home computer. If you want a specific one from my profile list, just ask and I might be able to upload it (if I can update all the chapters before I finish 'Saving Zim.') The one that cannot be uploaded is 'Return to Oz.' It's only in book form. So uh... yeah! *sweatdrop* Thanks for asking! I am always happy to answer! Never be shy. If you really want something... I might upload it. So take your pick!

 **Edit**

Ohmigosh... so many ppl want Debacle Rewrite... god help me! XD

* * *

 **CHAPTER 18: (20/21): Saving Zim**

There was little use rushing Clara's experience. She was soaking it all in, like a child being perplexed and yet overwhelmed by her first toy store, or her first theme park. Her eyes were everywhere; clearly stunned with what she was seeing. Several times she stopped to peer more anxiously at something, and several times Dib was sure she'd beg to go back up top to escape to normality; back to the realm of human beings. He did not let go of her hand, and in fact squeezed it often to reassure her. This was no nightmare; he wanted to tell her, but a dream. A cohesion of all that is wonderful and alien. Instead, all he managed was: "It's only a little further."

She did not ask where they were going, for she was so absorbed in their present travels. In these warrens of passageways, she seemingly expected some malodorous beast to come from the shadows or from the next corner and get them.

But there were no threats.

Only whirring computers, massive coils of equipment, and reams of cables that ran down every crevice and tunnel. At times, due to their human height, they had to duck under wires and tubes, for the place seemed more suited to something small: and she kept from touching anything, frightened of what might happen to her if she did. In a way, she was reminded of Eve in the Garden of Eden standing before the forbidden fruit, and that to touch something beyond her comprehension was folly.

She could not get a read of the base's size, but she was beginning to understand the scale. "Why does... why does the alien need so much? This place is... massive! How has no one discovered this?"

Dib noticed that she was failing to use his name, as if the notion of Zim being an alien had somehow dehumanized him. And perhaps it had.

"Humans are incredibly... short-sighted." Dib explained. "Zim has always been paranoid, and goes the extra mile to conceal his endeavours, until he started to lose his memory. Even so, he tends to keep people away. And no one would think of looking that deep underground. Even gas pipes and the sewer system doesn't go so deep."

"But why does he need all this? What does he do? Why is he even here?"

Dib was unprepared to answer so soon. If he confessed that he was a soldier with the sole purpose of destroying/capturing mankind AND Earth, he might never be able to reason with her again. Zim was past all that now, but she might not see it that way.

"Urm... I'll explain everything about him later, much later, that I _promise_ you. Soon you'll know all about him, Clara. But I think seeing all this is enough for now."

This seemed to satisfy her, but he knew she'd suss the alien out sooner rather than later. Smart creatures with intelligence tended to be cruel. It was the way of things. Humans were no different. And yes, he would explain all he could.

Knowing that he was running out of time, Dib took her to the conduit, and they went deeper down into Zim's darkest layers.

xxx

When Dib was back in the warm biological repair bay, he let go of Clara's hand and ran to the autodoc before he even allowed himself a chance to hesitate. Hesitate, and he may not be able to move at all: he'd simply freeze up like a coward.

What he saw in the autodoc stunned him.

Zim was awake, but barely. His eyes were open to narrow, wet slits and he wasn't moving. He lay as limp and as lifelessly as before, with his smooth antenna projecting no emotion. His damaged one remained hanging at its permanent broken position. The oxygen face-plate or mask (depending on what the Irkens called it) remained hooked to his face. As were all the monitoring pads, wires, tubes and IV feeds. So there was no way he could possibly move, even if he had the energy.

On the overhead screen was a large Irken warning symbol. Below it were words in English, subtitled with words in Irken.

 _ **Infection (bacterial)**_

 _ **Foreign object of undetermined source**_

 _ **SURGERY REQUIRED**_

 _ **CONTACT A SPECIALIST IMMEDIATELY**_

 _ **Biological entity life signs diminishing**_

Timidly, Clara tip-toed up from behind, clasping her hands together and looking vaguely paralyzed – like a rabbit caught in the headlights. She was taking everything in with wonder, bemusement and fear. But when she caught a glimpse of what lay in a glass case that looked remarkably coffin-like, she moved forwards a little closer, choosing to spectate from a distance.

"Zim?" Dib called almost shyly – sheepishly. For he was just a human – a human who was out of his depth. He had explored a level he was not supposed to explore. He had almost disregarded Zim's very rules. And he was just a guest, a guest who had suddenly acquired all this responsibility. He was afraid. Now he had dragged Clara into this without permission, and his guilt was evident. Zim would know, and he would hate him for it.

The old Elite turned to him weakly, his chest rising and falling irregularly as if something still hurt inside. He tried to speak, but the mask cupped over his mouth prevented the words from leaving his tongue.

Dib spun to the little panel that had so far responded to every instruction he gave it. "Open the autodoc!"

 _ **Opening...**_

The glass-tomb began to open, and a hiss of warm air escaped out of the compartment through the new breach down the centre. It made Clara jump.

Before the autodoc had fully opened, Dib was by Zim's side. He could not believe he was awake! That he'd ever see his eyes open again!

Not sure if this was safe, or proper, Dib lifted off the plastic looking mouth-plate, but when he did a tube followed as it wormed its way out of Zim's throat. The human cursed, fearful that he may have gone too far, and was scrapping it against the alien's windpipe. Was it too late to force it back in?

It was too late: the tube was out, and Zim was coughing and spluttering, gulping down raw air into his primitive lungs.

Dib wanted to take it slow for him, and take a moment or two to explain things but he knew he didn't have time. Something was obviously inside the Irken, some kind of toxin or impurity and though he had no idea what the procedure could possibly be, or even how he was to do it, a course of action had to be taken. And Zim had to be moved to have surgery.

Misty confusion was in the Irken's hooded eyes. He was trying to look around, his focus rarely on Dib or Clara at all. Dib noticed that he was not moving his limbs either. He was too weak.

"Zim, it's okay. You're at home. In the biological repair bay." He got in before the Elite could bombard him with threats and orders. But the Irken's response was quite the opposite.

"Wh-wha go-goin' on? Why... wha'...?" His voice was faint, and very croaky. In fact, he hardly sounded like the Zim he knew at all. It was as if his vocals were broken.

"It's okay. I took you here, and the computer is doing all it can to stabilise you. But now you need surgery." It was too much to fill Zim's head with information. Out of respect he would not mention Gir. He was going to keep it simple. Zim obviously had no idea what was going on, and it was doubtful that he even remembered being in Dib's home not more than a few hours ago.

"I have Clara with me," he continued, keeping his gaze on Zim's, "That's all. I don't want you to worry about a thing."

Of course, everything Dib said just went over the little invader's head. "Where... wh... am I? Hav'... hav' you captured Zim?"

"No! No this is your home!" He didn't have time to argue. The Irken's heart rate on the large screen was already showing signs of troubling irregularities. "I'm going to gently remove these monitoring pads. But you gotta wear these IV tubes and wires."

All the blood had been transfused into him, but Dib doubted it was enough. These tubes he could at least remove by plucking them out of the catheter in Zim's left hand. Then he deftly removed the monitoring pads, silencing any on-screen information.

"Why... why am I h-here?" Came Zim's croaky little whimpers. He was full of atrophy, and couldn't raise his head when Dib went to unhook him from the last device.

"Don't worry; I'm taking care of it. Just relax, okay? That's your job."

Zim's bare skin was warm at least, and his tissue was not that dissimilar to a human's. It was free of any hair follicles, making it impossibly smooth and silky, much like silicone. But there was a noticeable feel of bone and Dib could feel it against his touch as he scooped him up into his arms.

At least Zim was not struggling, or panicking much at this point. He was so tired, so weakened, that he barely blinked. Everything was likened to a dreamy haze, and he barely understood much of what Dib was telling him. His sense of smell had gone, his vision was fading, and he just had one antenna to listen with.

Clara came over a little closer, and Dib could tell she was fighting with her own emotions. She was still trying to compare the Zim she had met at the supermarket, to the Zim Dib was now holding.

"Follow me, and keep close." He told her.

She swallowed, and again found that she could not speak, even though there were a hundred things she wanted to ask.

Dib carried him to the next chamber practically next door.

' _The specialized chamber is next door to the biological repair bay. You must take Master Zim there. You will know when you see it.'_

And yeah. He did know when he saw it.

It was like a fucking autopsy room.

This was where Zim took his human experiments, even Dib himself in times gone-by, and the alien had hooked his prizes to the walls, or to the table in the middle where they would be bound by plasma cuffs. Then he was free to do whatever he liked to them.

It gave Dib bad déjà vu.

Luckily there were no corpses here now, and no trophies. Like everything else, this room looked like it had been cleaned from top to bottom.

"Not... not here..." Zim whispered in his arms.

Dib ignored him and approached the table. It was well-lit in here, with clean torture devices on stand-by for whenever the invader happened to drop by to play with one of his captured humans. It was sickening to be here, to see these devices that had cut and diced up his own kind.

"Gir...?" Zim listlessly started to whine. "Where... where is Gir? I... I can't remember..."

"Shhh now. You can worry about him later." He looked around for any signs of the computer. It was a habit that was hard to break out of. "Computer? Walk me through this! I have no idea what to do! Is this even the right place?"

"Set Master Zim onto the bench, and proceed to use the facilities."

Clara jumped again, looking frantically around for the perpetrator of the voice. She held herself fast and didn't run, namely because she had no idea where to run to. She was so deep down that she could almost feel the weight of the base above her. The sense of claustrophobia was remarkably strong.

"What facilities...?" As he spoke, little apparatuses began to emerge from the walls or under desks, lining themselves up against the bench. He recognised the oxygen feed, and the mesh of monitoring pads. Clara watched in fascination. Again she said nothing, and her silence was starting to worry Dib.

Carefully he set Zim down onto the bench. This too had a slot for an Irken PAK, and it slid neatly into the hole, allowing Zim to rest lying flat on his back. It was not the usual resting position for an Irken.

Before his eyes, the devices came to life of their own accord, and started attaching themselves to Zim. First the Irken had to once again endure the breathing mask, and more tubes and wires connected to him. Projection screens popped up, displaying all of Zim's vital statistics. But, to his horror, not everything was by the book. Plasma cuffs snapped awake like live electricity and fastened Zim's wrists and ankles to the bench in great blue lines of sparking violence.

Dib at once went to detach one, only to yank his hands back from the pain it caused. "Ouch! Computer! Disengage these goddamn cuffs! I did not ask for these!"

"Failure to comply. Plasma-chain cuffs must be in place."

"Why? He's no prisoner! He's your Master!"

"Following pre-programmed protocol in the event of Irken treatment."

"In English please?"

"Restraint allows the surgery to proceed without interruption. The Irken must remain conscious in order for it to have a chance at surviving."

"So after the surgery you'll release him?"

"That is correct."

Zim was testing the plasma cuffs experimentally. Luckily they were not hurting him. There was obviously a coating inside each cuff that prevented his skin from making contact. However it was clear that he was stuck lying on his back, with his arms and feet slightly apart. And he looked pretty daunted, as if the fear was developing inside him in slow deliberation, but in hazy, dreamy portions he could not grasp.

"The sooner I do this, the sooner I can get you out of here." He told the Irken. But there was little indication that Zim had heard him.

Zim was not looking at him anymore though. He was starting to detect Clara.

"Is... is there s-someone e-else in here?"

"Yes. An Irken doctor." He lied this time even though he had already spoken her name. Telling Zim the truth may just tip him over the edge; the final stress causing him to go into cardiac arrest.

Quickly he turned to the torture tools. They were all hanging up from bright, pink tethers. There were a lot of instruments that looked almost recognisable, and then there were others that were just alien: their purpose unknown. He selected what looked like a little USB device.

"You'll need that." Said the computer. "But use it with caution. It emits a high-concentrated laser with short range and duration. But it can cut through flesh with ease."

"Doesn't he have basic scalpels?"

"No."

"Scissors?"

A tool was extended on its pink tether, and he grabbed it. It looked more like space-age pliers than scissors.

He approached Zim and looked him over as floods of anxiety poisoned his body. He did not want to do this. He wanted to run away and never look back.

"Computer, show me the location of this... contaminant."

"Observe on the left-hand screen." Came its concise reply. "Then I suggest wearing gloves."

Dib and Clara watched, as medical students watched a video on the procedural steps of his next surgery. There was a detailed 3-D model of Zim's abdomen, and a giant red dot highlighted the left side of his body. Dib knew that this was the troubling wound that kept bleeding. And it looked like it was in fairly deep, judging by the image.

"What am I looking for? A bullet? A piece of material?"

"The object is of unknown origin. But it must be removed. My sensors dictate that the object is small, about half an inch wide and an inch long."

Dib grit his teeth together, not liking this one bit. "Has Zim been given pain relief?"

"Affirmative. As much as his weakened body can handle."

"Will he feel it? The surgery?"

"Inconclusive data."

That sounded about right. How could a computer judge pain anyway? It had no idea, and neither did Dib.

He was handed a pair of surgical gloves from an extended mechanical hand. He put them on, finding that they fitted.

He put the pliers to work and fetched a little of the bloodied bandage wraps between its teeth.

 _This part is easy. I can do this._

Clara suddenly stepped in, and rested a hand on his. He looked up at her, his heart beating hard.

"You've clearly done enough." She told him. "You're not emotionally stable to do this. You're shaking."

He was, but he had gone on to ignore it. What choice did he have?

"Let me." She continued.

"But..." He struggled to get the words out. A lump had formed in his throat. "But... this is surgery! He's an alien! You must hate me for revealing this to you so late! And you must despise Zim for being what he is! You have no idea what to do anymore than I do!"

Gently she guided his hands into hers and she started removing the gloves. Instead she slipped them onto her own hands and manipulated the pliers from his cold, shaky fingers. "You brought me down here. And here I am. The timing is terrible. But I can help better than you can. I've stitched up a dog before; I've cared for lots of different animals working in a volunteer group and I've helped deliver calves at my stepparent's ranch. I'm no vet, but I know a lot about animals."

"But he's not a dog!" Dib interjected.

"No. He's not. But he's still a living creature made up of tissue and blood. True, I kinda wish I knew more about him, but I have steady hands. Why else did you bring me here?"

"I gave you the choice." He told her softly. "Zim just... fucked me over with this infection. And I had to abandon you and everything else to help him."

"Just... just give me something to help. Like... like something showing me his anatomy." Clara seemed like she only wanted to focus on this, because it was all she had, something she could work with. Something almost familiar. It distracted her from all the technology, the base itself and the computer's disembodied voice.

Dib relayed her question back to the computer and an additional HUD screen flowed seemingly out of the wall and opened out before them in seconds. On it was the statistics of Irken design. In white was the creature's bones, and in purple were its major organs, all labelled in frank English.

Clara still looked very apprehensive when she drew close to the Irken. It was his slanted, hooded red eyes she did not like. And he had teeth. Sure, he couldn't bite her, what with a faceplate around his mouth, and the plasma cuffs keeping him married to the table, but she feared him like she feared a snake.

Still, she tried to be professional. Alien or not, this creature needed help. She remembered the evening when she approached him with the cough medicine, and how much she wanted him to get rid of that death-rattle of a cough.

It helped allay her inexplicable fear.

Clara applied pressure on the handles that were better suited to dainty Irken hands, and the teeth cut perfectly through the gauze. When the last layer was cut away and thrown to one side, it revealed the swollen puncture wound under Zim's ribs. The hole was puffy with blood leaking out of it.

Zim was slowly but surely beginning to understand what was happening to him. "D-Dib! Don'... don' do this! Don'! Don't!" He croaks could just be heard through the material of the mask.

Dib reached out and caressed his head, thus feeling how burning hot he was with fever. "Easy, easy. Something's inside you, Fudgekins, and it's got to come out."

"Nothing... nothing is inside... Zim... but Zim..."

Dib smiled ruefully for him, still stroking his feverish forehead. "If we don't do something, then I'm going to lose you. There's a terrible infection in your body, and your PAK isn't purging it. Probably because whatever's in there can't come out without intervention." Although there was much to suggest that the PAK had stopped helping entirely and was probably just keeping Zim basic life-support online, nothing more.

Clara put the pliers down and a pink tether came of its own accord and snagged it back up again, clearing it away.

The ugly wound seemed to stare up at her like a bleeding, empty eye socket. To even go near it, and touch Zim's flesh unnerved her. How could she do this? She was no surgeon, no practitioner. She was just a young woman who had just got engaged, had a good job, and happened to have a fiancé who had an alien for a friend.

Either way, this had to be at the root of Zim's illness.

All she had to do was remove it.

But that was easier said than done.

x

"D-Dib... Dun't cut... dun't cu-cut me opun... You... you promised you wouldn't..."

It was Zim's last parting distress call. Lying on the bench, his limbs cuffed down, he could not move, he could not escape. His mind was fuzzy with fever, and he did not understand all that Dib said. He kept sidestepping into dreams and twirling imaginations that danced around him, and they felt more real than he himself felt. Sometimes he failed to tell apart reality from his daydreams. He wanted to sleep; he wanted to fully embrace these unrealities, but Dib worried him. Dib kept bringing him back, kept telling him things, kept touching his head and telling him it would all be okay.

He got the vague impression that someone else was with the Dib. It didn't help that his eyes were veiled in fog, and the faceplate kept him from smelling the air for intruders. But he was pretty sure he could hear them. The voice was lighter than Dib's, and smoother, calmer. For some reason the voice instilled a strange serenity in him, even if it was just for a moment.

Even so, fever bogged him down, and kept his brain functioning at minimal capacity. But he was aware that he was strapped down to the bench: a bench reserved for prisoners. He was also aware that Dib had access to his implements: his cruel instruments that he himself had used on others once upon a time. And Dib and this other shadow stood over him with something in their co-joined hand. No doubt he would soon feel a blade or corkscrew drive into an organ or between his ribs, and he'd feel the bone-shattering pain soon after. He could not breach the gap between his blackouts, and therefore could not understand why he was here, and why he was so mortally handicapped. All that was imprinted in his mind was the wire trap, and the promise made.

He telepathically linked himself to his PAK in the hopes of using it, in the hopes of getting out. He always relied on his PAK as a kind of deus ex machina to get him out of most situations, but this time he was rebuked almost harshly: "Zim! Don't try to use your PAK! You don't have the energy!"

But he was trapped! Helpless!

He warbled out a croaky cry in a mixture of frustration and fear: both emotions that were taboo to display should he ever be captured.

Zim was breathing hard and fast, yet he still felt as though he could not get a single breath into his lungs. He was weak with fear, and this melted away any rage he would otherwise have felt. He wanted to scream. He wanted to hide away. And he could only lie there, waiting to die.

"Look at me, Fudgekin. Look at me, please!" Dib's voice, so much deeper and older now, commanded his attention. Zim's dull eyes sought his amber ones. But it was so terribly dark. Was Dib working with no lights on? Was he insane? Or was the base suffering another blackout? This instinctively made him think of Gir, and in his sudden panic, he bleated out his name in a broken croak.

"Zim!" Dib's voice persisted. "Gir's not here right now! I just want you to look at me!"

He tried to do so, but he could barely see him. It was just so dark.

"Do you trust me?" The human continued.

Trust.

What an ironic word.

Irkens did not trust, did not know _how_ to trust. Trusting was against their natural programming. Everything they did was within their own control, their own power. Trust meant that friendship was involved, that unions had to be formed. And friendships simply were not possible. Reluctant allies were formed in the struggle for supremacy, but that was just mutual gain won by violence. Trust had nothing to do with it. Wars could not be won with trust alone. It was a foolish fancy.

Trust meant handing your power over to someone else. Believing in them, when no other belief existed. It was weakness. It was treachery. It was dependency.

But promises could only be made from this trust, of which Zim already believed. So, had he trusted all along? Not knowing, not realizing? In his old age, had he finally betrayed his own kind? His own principles?

Zim tried to keep his focus on his human ally, a human who had complete power over him, who had all the organ-splitting instruments, and who had him chained to the bench.

What a demanding question indeed.

"Do... do y-you trust me...?" Zim offered weakly in return, feeling fluid run up his throat. His tongue was thick with the sting of his own blood, and he was pretty sure his teeth and gums were soaked in gore. He could feel his heart stumbling weakly in his chest. Why was he still alive?

"Yes." Dib replied without discord. "I do trust you. I mean it. Survive this, and you can have the keys to my place. You can come and visit, whenever you want."

At that, Zim smiled drunkenly behind his faceplate. "I... I do trust you, stink beast. I... I do..." The earlier fear fell away, and he no longer cared that Dib had full authority, and had all the gadgets at his disposal. At least, in death, he did not care that his body would be sent to the Fall. Better to die at the hands of Dib, than to succumb to spiteful old age, and to the woes of a failing PAK.

"Okay, Zim. Here goes. I'm sorry if this hurts, okay? I really, really am. But whatever's inside you has got to come out. And we can't stop until it's over. Just keep breathing."

The instructions sounded blissfully simple, and so Zim closed his eyes and tried to do just that. That was about the same time he felt a nasty pressure in his side. He felt no pain at first, only a slight pulling and pushing as something probed into him. He wanted to drift away, he wanted to sleep, and dream. He was back in the giant hallway with the other Irkens. He could smell them, hear them. It made him bright with joy. He was back! Being on Earth had been a nasty dream after all! He was still with the Armada! He hadn't left! Everywhere he looked he saw green, neutral faces. The colour of each bright uniform.

The Tallest were up on the far podium, waving at them. But the dream cracked down the middle when he was roughly pulled out of it. Dib was there, nudging him awake. He felt like he had been out cold for hours when really he had just slept for thirty seconds.

"Zim! You mustn't fall asleep! You _have_ to keep your eyes open!"

But the dream! The Irkens! He wanted to return to them. He did not want to be here! He did not want to remember Earth, or the human race. He wanted to be home, where he belonged. There was no pain there. No emotional baggage. No allied bullshit. Only the army with their simplistic needs.

They had been so real... as if they were all waiting for him.

"Zim!" Dib's voice had broken, and he sounded... strange. He sounded... distraught. "Zim, please you gotta stay awake! We don't have long! Please do this for me!"

But the Irkens! They were but a breath away. "Dib... Dib let me go to... to them..."

"Go to who? Look, buddy, you can't fall asleep. I need you here. We're nearly done! Give Clara five more minutes!"

"But... but the other... the other Irkens..."

"There are no other Irkens, Zim! Now hush and keep awake! Don't you dare close those eyes!"

Now he recognised why the Dib sounded different.

He struggled to raise a claw. He was guiding it blind. Though his eyes were open, all he could see was feathery darkness.

He searched for Dib, and his claw rested on his cheek, feeling the wetness there.

"D-Dib human... you're... you're crying..."

"Just... just a little."

x

 _Okay, what do I do first? How do I even begin without hurting him more, if that's even possible?_

These questions were at the forefront of Clara's mind. She knew she had to do her best, whatever that composed of, and Dib seemed to have an intelligent 'Irken' computer at his disposal, IF he could understand its jargon of course. And she had all the tools it seemed, all hooked in organised rows and immaculately clean. If Zim didn't come down here too often, he did a good job of cleaning each level either way, so much so that the room hardly looked used.

Dib accessed the open wound with self-doubt, feeling defeated even before she had started.

The open hole was oozing blood, but the green trickle had slowed. Clara picked up a pink cloth and pressed it against Zim's side. It soaked up the fluids readily. His blood, she noted, was green. It flowed as gracefully as human blood, but was darker in its consistency, and it had that tangy smell of autumn.

Dib looked up and around, addressing the computer system urgently. "Computer, guide us through it! Quickly!"

"In order to keep the wound open, apply these." The computer demonstrated by activating a tube with a pair of hooks on the end that worked like fingers. It snatched up a tool and presented it to the humans. The tool looked like forceps – the kind that forced things open. It made Dib and Clara feel extra queasy.

They were going to force Zim's wound wider with that thing? Was the computer playing a practical joke on them? Wouldn't that cause more bleeding? More damage?

Clara gingerly took the forceps and her eyes helplessly stole over to the Irken's biological readouts. She didn't know what the numbers and symbols meant, but she knew that the beeping, purple thin line was Zim's present heart rate, and it was moving along at jagged, slow intervals, falling and rising continuously. That was good, right?

"Zim owes us the fucking universe for this." Dib muttered absently.

"Please the closed forceps into the injury-site," the computer helpfully imputed as Clara hesitated, holding the tool over Zim's swollen belly, "and hold down on the clamps. This should spread the tongs wide, opening up the injury. There are light-beams behind you. They are medical torches." It added, as if it somehow knew that the humans did not fully understand the Irken lingo.

"O-Okay..." Clara began. "I'm doing this to get at what's inside, right?"

"That is correct." The computer answered, which only caused to startle her as if she did not expect an intelligent reply.

Dib breathed in deep. He looked over at Zim who had his eyes closed. His chest was rising deeply as he gasped in the supplemented oxygen. He was no longer rambling, and Dib could not afford to split his attention and keep him awake as well as guiding Clara with the surgery. "Clara. You'd better start. Unless you want me..."

It did not help that Zim was so preciously little either. If he were larger, this surgery may have been easier. It was just as well that Clara had dainty hands.

The smell was so nauseous that Dib could even taste it on his tongue. It reminded him of rancid meat that had been left out in the sun all day.

Grabbing a 'light-beam' or torch that Dib passed helpfully over to her, Clara peered into the hole with it, hoping to see this supposed 'contaminant.'

"I... I can't see it!" She told Dib. She expected this piece of material to be right there! Enabling her to simply reach in and take it! But it was not there, turning this whole situation into a nightmare she wanted to wake from.

The computer once again answered for her: "It is buried inside the main digestive organ: known as the squeedly spooch. It must be located and removed before further loss of life."

"But where is it?"

The computer just delivered information, and did all it was capable of in terms of programming. It could not possibly know or even understand the emotions that were racing through them, or the complications of practical endeavours.

The computer intoned as if this feat alone was ever so straightforward. "Use the visual display, for I have pinpointed its rough location in red."

Dib sweated.

The torch light was hopeless. The more Clara looked, the less she wanted to see. There was nothing in there but sweaty, quivering lumps of meat that gurgled and plopped. A part of it was badly swollen: this much she could tell because a portion of it was discoloured and very bloated like it had haemorrhaged in the not-too-recent past.

Clara reached in with one shaky hand, swallowing hard, while Dib held the torch light. It was like dipping into a hot, murky cave that squelched and pulsed around her fingers. She tried to ignore these repugnant sensations, and instead focused on finding the problem. That meant she had to investigate Zim's spooch for defects. She had done this for the dog, but exploring an alien's intestinal problems was so very different. If she had been able to learn about his organs beforehand, she wouldn't have been so nervous.

She rummaged further in and felt something hard and sharp.

Carefully so that she did not drop it, she seized her fingers over it and pulled.

It did not come loose.

She heard a thin, weak, bloodied squeal coming from the little Irken.

"Computer!" Dib yelled. "Give him more pain relief! I think he's beginning to feel what Clara's doing to him!"

"Negative. Any further pain medication will risk irreversible organ failure. His biology is frail due to his age. I cannot allow it."

Clara pulled again, keeping her fingers locked around the object: the object that had to be the source of the problem. It was sharp and cruelly pointed, like a needle. No wonder it had gone in, and imbedded itself somewhere deep, causing no end to the internal haemorrhaging. Zim had probably lived with this thing in him for days, if not weeks. It was a miracle he had not died in the first 24 hours.

She pulled harder; worried she was going to pull out at least a big chunk of the creature's spooch. In the green, dripping darkness, she could feel Zim's heart panic, its pace doubling. But each pulse had no strength to it.

 _I have to get it out, whatever it is! Then I need to close him up!_

She tugged one last time. Flesh tore, and the object came away. She pulled it free and clasped it tight in her green fingers.

Clara brought it out of the hole and into the light of the room.

She'd done it.

Somehow, she'd done it.

Dib looked at her in awe.

Though she had achieved the impossible, doing surgery on an alien, she felt pride: the same pride she had felt when delivering calves, and after stitching up that dog. It left her speechless.

And then Zim began to ramble again, about ships and other Irkens as if he was in a mission and not lying, nearly comatose on a table.

xxx

During the surgery and even after it, there was little that Zim did not feel.

There was lots of tugging, deep inside. The miasma of dreams was on him again, and he was walking down an assembly line, saddled with new gear, and new battle armour. The other Irkens proudly stood in their meticulous rows, all waiting to be inspected. There were legions of them, all bristling with weapons and flags. Then a horn blasted across the vast assembly, and the Irken rows began to move, all walking in single file to an awaiting ship. The ship was enormous, looking easily capable of bestowing the entire army. It was called the 'Wanderer.'

Zim went to join the queue in fear of getting left behind. The Tallest were shepherding them into the ship on either side, Purple on the left, and Red on the right. The Irkens all marched in neat single-formation to the ship: a ship whose very bowels were a lecherous black that was as cold as the vacuum of space. Still, the Irkens went proudly into it, never to return.

Except, Zim began to notice that the Irkens all around him did not look exactly normal. Some of them sported grievous wounds, and sometimes they had a limb or two missing. Or an eye. Yet still they marched into the ship as if they were ready for war.

"Go on! That's it! In you go!" The Tallest Purple said, herding them onwards. Some of the Irkens trailed blood, others hobbled forwards on one leg. He began to peel back, suddenly frightened of what he was seeing.

"Zim! Zim!" The old Elite began to groggily wake, two eyes blinking sleepily. Though everything was veneered in blurry darkness, he could tell that it was the Dib who had spoken. Robbed of the faceplate, he could smell his acute human scent, and the nostalgic fragrance of cigarettes. There was also another smell. It smelled sweet, like flowers in bloom.

"D-Dib?" He wheezed. "W-What are y-you doing here? We're about to g-go to war. Get... g-get out of the way..." He went to close his eyes again.

"No, Zim! You've got to snap out of it! It's just a hallucination! A dream! It isn't real!"

"B-But the ship... it's about to take off..."

"There is no ship! There are no other Irkens."

Great, terrible loneliness nearly swallowed Zim entirely. Were there no Irkens after all? Was he on Earth, trapped in a mission he could never complete? Never to see his ilk again? "The Tallest... they are ushering us... ushering us f-forwards... they cannot leave Zim behind..."

"Fudgekin. The surgery is over. But you have to keep awake for just a little while. The computer is recommending more pain relief."

Much of this went over Zim's head.

"The computer is also recommending that you try and walk around a little to prevent any blood clots from forming, but you're seriously too unwell for that. How about I move you to your bedroom? Sorry, I mean resting chamber. Do you mind me taking you there?"

"T-Take Zim to t-t-the ship..."

He felt himself being lifted into a more upright position. The cuffs, though he no longer remembered them, had been long removed. His left side felt very tight, as if the skin and muscle had been clamped down, leaving him unable to move his left leg at all. And he could smell the strong, malodorous scent of his own blood. It almost overpowered the human's exotic odour, and that of the smell of flowers.

"I'm sorry, Zim. But hold still. This will only take a moment."

The next thing he knew he felt something suddenly piercing his chest. He yelped involuntarily, sure that Dib was in the processing of killing him. Then the device was pulled out and he realized in his blurred state of mind that the human had merely dispensed a powerful Irken painkiller into his system. And he had done it correctly. Already he could feel the euphoria of the drug soak into his senses. The ache in his side was numbed completely and his weak lungs could take in easier breaths.

"Is he okay?" Said an unfamiliar voice. Loosely, he placed the voice somewhere in a supermarket once upon a time as cough medicine was pressed into his reluctant hands.

"Don't crowd him, Clara. We just need to be gentle with him, give him time."

Unable to hold himself up, he bitterly felt Dib pick him back up into his arms; arms that were strong, muscled and warm. It grieved him that he was being nursed like this. Even smeets were not allowed this kind of fostering. Still, he leaned into the warmth because his poorly body craved heat, craved protection. There was nothing left in him now. A warrior he was no longer.

Zim shut his eyes, and almost willed the ship to materialise before him. He wanted to go back to the Irkens.

Even so, he felt the transition as Dib moved from chamber to chamber from the air currents hitting his right antenna.

Dib looked about him, addressing the Irken's remote computer system. "What does... what does Zim need now?"

"Incubation is required for a chance at recovery." Intoned the system. "Nutrients and further medication is recommended after an hour of static rest and warmth."

"Uh, okay." What, exactly, did this entail? "Um..." He was done: really done with the computer's inscrutable jargon. Clara however, stepped up, placing a cool, if a little shaky hand on Dib's arm.

"It's okay. Most animals after surgery just need to be kept warm and under constant surveillance until they wake naturally. You can't give them anything to eat or drink before then. Let me... let me hold him. Is there somewhere we can sit down, and relax? Then we really, really need to talk. About him and why he's here. He also mentioned... a Gir? You promised me _no_ more secrets."

"Yeah." He said. "I did, didn't I?"

* * *

 **Dib07:** Ah man, I just realized that poorly Zim was stuck in the autodoc for like... 5 chapters. 5 whole chapters. Wow. The poor guy. Talk about purgatory! Urm. so yeah. That part is now... over, I guess? There is a lot more to come. Gir. Dib updating Clara... the whole PAK debacle (and a few other things I won't mention due to spoilers!) So yeah. I hope that chapter wasn't too... grisly. XD See you all next week!

 **Zim** : Girly?

 **Dib07:** No, Zim. I said grisly. Please get a hearing aid.


	19. No more Secrets

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

By the POWER of the fans I will do all 50 chapters! Okay, I have been convinced. And you know who you are! You didn't let it go. You ask and you shall receive. In which case, I won't have to worry about cutting and stitching up big sections of this story just to keep it dramatic and exciting. So if the chapters get a little... slow, it's because it's the full package. I might copy and paste some shorter chapters together but you will get them ALL. You guys kept pushing for it. And I listened.

Yeah, it was Gir's thumb and I do realise now it was a bit... obvious? I suppose. But that fact that Zim was too proud, and too arrogant to know any better or just say SOMETHING just set up the story, and ended up dragging poor Dib down as well, and then Clara, and finally Gir himself. Zim had created this massive domino effect. What an epic fallout. All caused by one short-sighted Irken. Bravo Zim. Bravo.

For those who frequent Tumblr, **Weevmo** did 2 FUCKING AMAZING commission art pieces for Saving Zim, and one for Debacle. I'm still not fully recovered from the awesome, but I might be able to start speaking coherently again in another two weeks. ^^

 **Okay, important note here:** I am really anxious about submitting the Debacle Rewrite. I know quite a few of you want it, and I've posted a sample chapter. But it's only a sample just to showcase the not-so-friendly content. The reason I feel uncomfortable submitting it is because I know I am going to get penalised/flamed for it. There are some people out there that hate that kind of thing, and for good reason. And no matter how many warnings I put up, I might still end up getting hunted down. XD So I don't know what to do.

Is that it? I think that's it!

* * *

 **Guest**

That will be up to Zim to decide! If and when he is of sound mind! XD But in theory he is the one being benefitted. And yes, what a unique family they'd make!

 **GeekySkeleton**

Firstly I am stunned by your compliments. ^^ I know I have received a lot of praise for this so far but I still can't get over it! THANK YOU so, so MUCH! I think you'll enjoy what is coming even more! Keep your eyes peeled for chapter 25 and 26 (and 27). They were so FUN to write! I can't say anything, but it was exciting for me. So hopefully it will be more so for you! But thanks again, for stopping by and sending me such heartwarming praise. It keeps this weekly series going for me. :D And you want more? Aww you're the best! Maybe me uploading all 50 chapters is just the ticket? Have a fantastic day!

 **moops**

Don't get too comfortable with them just yet, moops! XD No one should be around angry Irkens when they wake up. And I mean... really wake up!

 **LizGir12**

Ooh someone from Tumblr? AWESOME! Yeah Weevmo wakes up and produces awesome! On a plate! I cannot praise her enough. The art was just...beautiful. They're like my sneaky pick-me up pictures on my phone when I'm at work when I get stressed. Glad they inspired you here, to the dark corner of ffn!

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

Truer words were never spoken. Yes, that Irken needs a good telling off. The thing is, angering Zim is like triggering a nuclear rector into meltdown. It's _really_ hard not to brush him the wrong way. He is his own worst enemy. And Dib has been the one left to suffer the fallout, let's say. I loved your comments. You knew the measure of anxiety and hopeless desperation in the characters, and saw straight through Dib. Yeah, that little imp does mean the world to him! Pity things had to get so far for him to realize.

Awww! You check your email for updates from little old me? You're the best! I keep receiving SUCH praise! This is really overwhelming! Okay, because you have left me such AMAZING reviews and you'll really supported me, I'll upload **'If Only I Could'** and a sample chapter of **'Debacle Rewrite.'** I'll warn you, it's...  dark. The reason it's only a sample is because I want to showcase how... demoralising it is. My maturity in my writing has grown, but so has my ideas. If you still want the story, I'm either gonna have to get really brave, or I'm going to have to be really brave. XD

''' I admit a rather guilty pleasure in reading fanfics that have Zim in Dib's hands.'''

Ha! Me too! Debacle Rewrite is just that. I couldn't find any, so I had to write my own version! Just as well you said that, because yeah, that is mainly what the Rewrite is all about. It's not as plot-focused as 'Saving Zim' but it's very... emotional.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 19: (22): No More Secrets**

There was Zim's resting chamber, but the computer forbade Clara from entering. So, for now, they were guided to a warm little room next to the laundry chute. It was a small recreation room. The walls were a light pink, and there were plush seats and cushions, all embossed with the Irken military logo. Lining the walls on metal shelf units were also books containing colourful picture books and there was also a chest full of toys. If Zim ever came here for a bit of 'chill out time' there was no clue he ever did. This was more of a private playroom for Gir. Maybe when Zim was on this level, trying to organise his laundry, or his 'experiments' he'd herd Gir into the playroom to get some time away from the robot.

"Computer... urm... can you raise the temperature of the room, please? And... do you have any... blankets?" Dib asked it. He was slowly, but surely getting used to this strange lingo. It was also terribly convenient; he was just discovering, and an appallingly lazy way of doing things. You just asked the computer, and it was done.

"Very well." Intoned the system, and as Dib stood, holding Zim in his arms, he could feel the air in the room begin to heat up.

A metallic drawer opened in the wall like they were in some magic show, and in the drawer was a selection of blankets, all in either pink, purple or lilac. Clara picked out two pink ones and she sat down on one of the plush bean cushions. Then, with the blankets swaddled between her arms, she held them open for Dib to pass the Irken to her. Zim was still rather warm, with a new glued mark running down his side. He had fallen unconscious again, or was asleep: it was hard to tell without actually trying to forcibly wake him. All Dib had to do was flick his right antenna to see what kind of reaction this would create, but he wasn't about to do that to him, unless he absolutely _had_ to.

"You sure?" Dib asked.

Clara nodded, not taking her arms away. So Dib stepped forwards and gently deposited the small parcel into her arms. Then she swathed the Irken in blankets: holding him close like he nothing more than a child. As per protocol it seemed; for the computer was ever watchful, the wall nearest Clara extruded another oxygen apparatus, and a fresh IV line. Using the catheter already hinged into Zim's hand, she plugged the feed into it, and rested the mask on the Irken's pale mouth.

"The best way to help animals recover is warmth." Clara was saying, as if she was repeating simple doctrines she had heard once not too long ago.

Dib could not help but notice how snugly Zim fitted into her arms. And she was gazing down at him constantly as if she was the proud new owner of an exotic breed of pet. "I'm not sure if he will... make it." He rasped, remembering the rest of Zim's symptoms listed on the autodoc's screen. He felt sick since the surgery. Then he told her: "But you... you did good. Really good."

Meanwhile, he was still a shivering wreck. He tried to dry his tears on a bit of sleeve. A mechanical arm distended from the ceiling and offered him a tissue from its metal clamps. Dib took the tissue from the arm and watched it fold itself back up again in the miasma of tubes above. He then dabbed the tissue at his eyes.

"I don't know what to think anymore." Clara mused.

"Yeah. It's a heck of a lot to take in."

"Zim's very... bony." She mentioned after a few moments.

"Yeah. He's always been rather... lean."

"What... what age is he?"

"He's the grumpy old age kind."

She looked around, as if searching for speakers or hidden remote cameras. But the room was blank of any external spying devices. In fact, the room was remarkably cosy and quite normal, considering it was inside an alien's base.

"So... how come you can talk to the base?" She asked, her wide amber eyes on his. "Can... I do this too?"

He thought about it for a moment. "Talk to the base...? Oh, you mean his computer?"

She nodded.

He crumpled the tissue into his pocket. His eyes still felt wet. "Surprisingly, Zim gave me limited access to his base. You won't have access, so it's best you don't try, but it's a very smart system. It maintains the security around here, performs any general repairs, and even does the laundry, apparently. Just... don't get on its bad side. It still is a military program. And it only ever answers to Zim."

This seemed to swing her back to her original question, and she overlooked the dark warning in his eyes. "So... why is he here? Did he crash land? Did... did he fly in a UFO? From England maybe?" Dib waited for her to stop, as she looked to him for answers, but she did not seem able to contain herself; "Are there more of... him? What is his race called? Where was he born? Are... are they all this small?"

It was obvious that she did not know what to ask first. But for Dib, this was good. Really good. Her fear was shrinking. Healthy curiosity was taking its place. Either way, it did not look like she was winding down. The longer he hesitated, the sooner she jabbed out her next question.

"How... how did he get injured? Did something happen? Who hurt him? What the heck is this thing attached to his back? It's hard, but warm! I don't..."

"Whooh, slow down, Clara. You're getting excited."

"I... I am." At this, she sounded surprised at herself.

Dib leaned forwards a little, interlinking his hands together. His eyes roamed about the little room. There was a musical box in one corner, and a giant plush of a pig by one of the bean cushions. He could imagine Gir sitting on one of the cushions: giggling as he flicked through the various fairy tale books Zim had collected for him over the years. It made his heart ache terribly, magnetising the sadness knotted inside. Even though he had managed to allay the tears, more threatened to spill forth.

 _Well,_ he said to himself, _here we go._

"I can answer what I can, but Zim will have to fill you in on the rest, if he pulls through. As to why he's here... why he's on Earth at all... He arrived on a mission."

"He... he arrived? In a ship?" Clara actually whispered as if she was worried about being overheard. When she put forward the question, she was stroking Zim's head gently. He could tell that she was fascinated with him. The irony of it was that if Zim was conscious and healthy, and knew he was being touched, he would've had a meltdown. An angry meltdown, and sulk for about a month about it. Clara had never seen him as he really was: angry, rude, psychotic; because Zim had always been on his best behaviour with her.

Dib nodded. He hoped he wasn't going too fast for her. He took a big breath, and for just a moment he was able to stem the tide of sorrow. "His mission was to conquer Earth. And enslave us."

She laughed weakly, as if anticipating the joke. But Dib wasn't smiling. "What? This little thing?"

"He may look 'cute' now, but he's lethal and smart when he plays his cards right. And he's very self-sufficient and cruel. He's an invader of planets, Clara. If there's anything I've learnt about him: about Irkens, is that they are ruthless." He gave pause to say: "He may be frail now, but he may yet surprise you. He's like that." Though, in a sad, despairing way he doubted that. Zim was old, and the surgery had most likely taken the last of his energy: that, and the symptoms the autodoc displayed had not been... good.

"Irkens?" She was processing it. Bit by bit. "Ruthless? An invader of planets?"

"Well, if you want to get really... technical... he's just a drone."

"What does that mean?"

"It means he's cannon fodder. His own society sees him as an expendable pawn."

"But... why?" Her curiosity was unfathomable, unquenched. The more Dib told her, the more questions she begged him to answer. He really hoped she was on his side, and that she wasn't about to take this information to the FBI. Her honesty seemed to be in the way she was holding the sick Irken. She was still cuddling him, one hand continually stroking his lower jaw.

He shrugged. "Society made him that way. Made them all that way. He serves this... Empire. I don't know a great deal, but I know enough to say that this Empire isn't good for us humans, or for their own people. What Zim does alone says a great deal about who he serves."

"Like what?" Her voice was small, but she wasn't looking away. She wanted to be welcomed towards this bright new step, into this unknown daunting era of her life.

"He... he carried this device around with him, hidden in the sleeve of his glove and I removed it. Should he be captured, or injured beyond completing his duties: he activates this device, and blows up. It's what's expected of him. And even if he were to die naturally, even after completing his mission, he has no funeral. He is destined to become fuel for someone's ship. Diseased or inadequate Irkens are to be recycled: reused. Or to be destroyed. That's how insane they are."

Clara looked very lost for a few moments, as if Dib's reply wasn't the typical, grandiose answer she had been expecting. Whatever sci-fi books she had read, or anything she had watched on the TV depicting aliens and their culture came nowhere close to the sad existence Dib was now telling her. And she was horrified.

Dib even went to say: " _If_ he survives, I had better go through all his uniforms, and make sure he has no more 'end of game' devices like the one he had." He had no intention of telling her that Zim had requested a gun as well, since Dib had denied him that too.

Clara looked down at the alien she held with a little more dismay. "And... Earth? Does he still want to... to conquer it? Because that's not the impression I got."

"No, he's not after world domination. Anymore." He looked down at his feet. So far he was doing pretty well, answering these straight forward questions without bursting into tears. Clara had little choice but to accept what he said. He felt like he had got the scariest part out of the way: telling her that Zim was their enemy, mankind's enemy, and that he had come here for the sole purpose of making the humans suffer. Now Earth had become an unlikely home for the intruder.

Clara however, wasn't done asking, and she didn't seem hugely intimidated... yet. After all, this terrible demonic creature they were discussing happened to be cuddled in a cute array of blankets in her arms, so it was hard to convince her of the threat he once was.

"And this... metal thing fixed to his back? Is it supposed to be there? I always thought it was a backpack he carried around with him."

"I don't know a whole lot either. It's namely serves as his life support, the idiot can't live without it, and it also doubles as his magical weapon box. Ever seen Mary Poppins on TV?"

She shook her head.

"Well, Mary Poppins had this bag, and she could take any number of things out of it, as if by magic. That's what he does. Only none of it is child friendly."

"And... how did you and Zim get... acquainted, shall we say?"

"Through our battles." He stated almost proudly. This little talk was good, really good for his mentality, he figured. The sadness all tied up within him would not budge, but he was able to think through it at least.

"You were both fighting each other?"

"It was a war. Physically and psychologically. He wanted to destroy Earth. I wanted to save Earth. And I was a kid, out there, on my own. No one believed me when I pointed fingers, saying that he was a threat: an alien. They laughed at me. Told me I was crazy." He took a deep, unsullied breath. He felt good to get it out in the open. "It was mostly because I had a rich, eccentric father. In the early years of school, and all through college the other kids were jealous of me because of the dad I had. It took me too long to see that. So the more I cried 'wolf' the less they listened, using it to tease me. So exposing Zim became an almost impossible goal."

"I'm so sorry." She said. "I know how it feels, to be excluded. I had friends of course, but I felt that I could never relate to anybody. I was always standing on the outside. Like I didn't belong."

Dib looked at her. "You mentioned stepparents, saying you helped them on the farm. Do you...?"

"Not now." She said somewhat defensively. It was the first time he noticed her reacting skittishly about something personal, "So, what happened next? With... Zim?"

"Well," now he was beginning to feel uncomfortable himself, for he was about to step into a place in his mind he had tried to bury for years, "things started going out of control. It was no longer about Earth, or saving mankind. It was about us. About survival. About surpassing one another. One of us was going to end up dead, and I didn't want it to be me."

She looked daunted, and incredulous. Dib wondered how she could even come to terms with it. She was no fighter: had no heart of violence. Clara could never understand the implications of a young teenager realizing the mortality of his situation with the enemy. If her hands weren't busy holding the Irken, she might have put a hand on his.

"But... but what happened?" She asked in a rush, "You're clearly not at war now?"

Dib hung his head, his hands still intertwined. "Sometimes I feel like I still am." He paused. Sighed. Opening up the secrets to her meant re-opening old wounds he'd rather stay closed. It would hurt like hell otherwise. It wasn't even that long ago that he slept with a gun in his hands, convinced Zim would visit him in the night like some demonic sandman. "We... we made this stupid promise." It sounded utterly ridiculous out loud, and he knew it, but deep down, his heart was hurting. "I shouldn't have made it. Now we're trapped in some childish oath, and neither of us can let it go, because we're so full of lousy pride."

"You made a promise? With an alien?"

Dib made a weak attempt at a smile. "I told you it was stupid." He nodded at the alien. "See his broken antenna?"

She nodded, touching it lightly with one finger. The frayed edges were matted. "I noticed it pretty much as soon as I first saw him without his... uh... disguise. It looks really painful."

"I did that to him. I'm not proud of it, and I have my war wounds too." He decided not to go any deeper into those hardboiled memories. Some were too hard to visit, even now. "We promised each other no more death games, no more tricks, so long as we didn't turn our backs on each other. Zim retracted his claws and saved me twice. Once from a carnival fire, and once from a brawl out in the streets after we'd left the Treaty one night. Some old college kids recognised me, and wanted to bash my brains in: they baited me by saying things about my dad. Zim stood there, watching for about a minute as they beat me up before he decided to... unleash his aggression on them. He took all three of them by himself." This memory at least didn't chaff at his better emotions. It was a good one to visit. "To keep things regular between us; to make sure we weren't pulling anything, we met up at the Treaty every week. And that's how it was."

"Well, that promise doesn't sound silly to me." She said. "I think it was a new beginning you two made, not a desperate compromise."

"But it was a compromise." He sharply returned. "Zim kept himself locked in his house for a year after I broke his antenna. At first I thought it was because he couldn't walk, and yes, I think that was half the reason, that, and the deafness I caused down his left side, but I think the true reason he locked himself in was because he was holding himself back: checking his rage. If he'd released his self-restraint, he would have gone and blown up Earth from orbit without needing to take one step. He HATED me, Clara. More than before, I think."

"It sounds to me then, that Zim gave up a lot for this promise. So please don't ever say that it was stupid ever again."

At this, Dib smiled sadly. "You're right. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for a lot of things, I guess."

"He couldn't walk?" She asked anxiously. "You made him... deaf?"

"That's right. He lost coordination and his natural equilibrium when I broke his antenna. It's... it's a long story I'd rather not revisit at the moment."

This reply seemed to give Clara some vital piece of understanding. "It's guilt, isn't it? That's why you've kept the promise all this time."

Dib nodded because it was easier to do than express it through words. She was astute, he noticed. She didn't know all that much, just what he was telling her, and though she only had the fragments of their colourful history, she was still seeing enough to realize the picture, even if it was half complete.

"Stop doing it out of guilt." Clara then said. "He's already forgiven you."

That answer hit Dib in the unguarded regions of his heart. Suddenly he was filling up with an even bigger sadness he couldn't quite handle. "How... h-how can you tell? You haven't known him as long as I have." He wanted the reconciliation, the atonement. She was reading him like he was an open book, and it unnerved him a little. Mostly though, he was glad. He wanted this weight lessened.

Clara looked at him as if his IQ had fallen short. "Why else would he give you admission to his base? You said he'd given you limited access. And how often would an alien hang out with a human at a bar? Or anywhere in fact? And do you know what I see when he looks at you?"

"What?"

"Admiration. He respects you, Dib, and he listens to you. Have you not noticed?"

Dib kept quiet.

"I'm an orphan, Dib. I know what it's like to be alone: to feel like the world's against you. It's not easy: staying strong. He's all alone too. To me, he's no drone. To me he's a living creature, like you. Like me. You've given him a taste of life, haven't you? Given him a chance to dream? Maybe that's why he stayed."

He wasn't so sure of that, but at least it gave him a chance to see her true motive. She was a compassionate human being who had no desire for power, or fame. That was something no invader could ruin or tamper with.

And she was an orphan. He at least had a father. Sure he had never been around much, and he lost his mother when he was young, but Clara had no one.

"So... I guess that means you're not going to report him to the authorities?" He asked her.

"Humanity should really know about him, but I can't bring myself to ruin this creature for the satisfaction of mankind." She tightened her hold on the Elite for a moment, cradling him close. Dib winced, helplessly dreading the moment Zim would spring awake and attack her. Really, in his condition, he would just fall to screaming, or have a nervous breakdown. Zim HATED touch above all else. It was at the top of his hate list. Humans were second on that list, germs making an easy third, and rain being number four.

Dib rolled his eyes, smiling. He knew Zim's likes and dislikes too damn well.

"Will there be more Irk-kins some day?" She asked, her pronunciation sounding humorous.

"No, I doubt it. The computer made it pretty clear that his leaders don't care about his mission on Earth. I can't fathom why. And as soon as Zim dies, this base is eradicated top to bottom. Maybe all Irkens are deeply paranoid and mentally unhinged."

It was not the kind of answer she was expecting, but then, every answer she received hadn't been what she'd imagined. "That's so... heartless."

"Yup. Irkens are heartless. They're a bunch of psychos in my book."

Clara was frowning. Something didn't quite add up. "Then why is he here, with this mission, if his 'leaders' or this Empire or whatever don't care? And when you first introduced me to Zim, he didn't seem..."

Dib unloosened the knot his hands had become, and stretched. He was so very tired. He'd had enough of Irkens, aliens, technology and 'protocol.' "Like I said, I can only answer so much. Only Zim knows the rest. But I wouldn't count on it. His memory has got really rusty."

"Will... will Zim be on his feet soon? I've no idea what his metabolism is like."

Dib rubbed at one eye behind his glasses. "That's the tricky part. Before he fell unconscious, all he wanted to do was terminate himself as if he was just a broken machine fit for the scrap yard. I've no idea what kind of Irken I'll be dealing with, should he survive. He's... he's a proud creature, Clara. For him, there is no room for failure." He also had to deal with the PAK, but he could easily do that by researching it on the computer while Zim recovered. He just wanted some shuteye for himself first.

"This 'empire' of his sounds as cruel as mankind."

"Trust me; the more I learn about Irkens, the less I want to know." Dib fetched another timid smile.

In the defence of his 'crazy' race, he could almost imagine Zim saying to him: _'The meek do not inherit the universe, you dumb idiot.'_

"So uh, what's next?" She asked.

 _What next indeed._

Dib wasn't sure he wanted to face that just yet. The autodoc had given him some things to chew over. Zim's symptoms had looked real bleak. And Dib was smart enough to realize that the alien's PAK had been compromised. But he already had plans on how to fix it. Once Zim was on his feet, and was pestering him as per usual, providing his organs had improved, he and Zim could work something out.

Clara whisked out her phone with her free hand while she cuddled Zim to her chest with the other. "Can I take a photo of him? Just a quick one?"

Dib got up to lower her hand with the phone. "Don't you dare. If he finds out, or if Gary sees."

She looked disappointed, but she complied. Because they were so close, she saw the necklace dangling from Dib's neck. It's gaudy shimmer of pink seemed to match that of the strange colour co-ordination that Zim had. " _Where_ exactly did you get that from?" And as she asked, she put down her phone to reach up and touch its glass surface. It was warm.

"Oh. It _was_ Zim's."

"What do you think it does?"

The computer droned out from above: "Attention, attention. Immediate assistance needed on level 9. There has been a security breach. I repeat, there has been a security breach."

Dib tried to remember why level 9 was so relevant. Something crossed paths in his memory banks, but he was so very tired and lethargic that nothing sprung to mind. However Clara was looking about, her face pale with new fear. They had both reached a relaxed zenith and now they were falling back down to familiar old stress levels.

 _Level 9... level 9! What the hell was in level 9?_

Then his mind clicked open the door. "Gir!" He took in a hot breath, and his heart tripled its pace.

Clara watched him carefully. "Who?"

"It's Zim's child... urh... robot thingy! Zim had him locked in this giant containment room! I don't know why! But I think he may have..."

 _...Broken out._

"Gir is a robot? What sort of robot?"

Dib didn't have time to explain. He needed to put Zim in his resting chamber before he could deal with it. And here was he was, hoping for some well-deserved rest!

"Clara, pass him back to me, carefully. I guess our little respite is over."

Clara tenderly handed him back, coaxing Zim into Dib's arms in a blanket-huddled bundle. The IV lines and faceplate were automatically removed by the computer. With one arm supporting his head, the other arm under his body and PAK, Dib began walking forwards, amused at how very warm the Elite was.

However, above them, along every ceiling they walked under, flashing red lights stabbed each room into mortal colour. Accompanying the warming lights that peeled things into black shadow was a keenly pitched siren. Despite Zim's deafness, it started to wake him up. His hooded eyes looked up at the blinking lights. They blared in and out, mirroring the fever deep inside him.

"D-Did I l-leave the s-stove on a-again..." He was clearly still out of it.

"It's nothing, Fudgekin. Let's get you sorted out first. Then I'll go and see what's wrong."

He heard Dib approach his resting chamber door. For not everybody could just walk in.

"Bio-scan complete." The security panel said as it scanned Dib and the Irken he carried in his arms. "Please verify security code."

"Urm... coffee?" Dib tried, because really, it was all he had.

"Security code verified. Welcome Master Zim. Welcome Dib Membrane."

But when Clara tried to follow, the computer laid down a force field, preventing her from going any further.

Dib looked back at her. Sadly, Zim's permission did not broaden to her because he had never extended his invitation to anyone else. It was privilege enough that Dib was allowed, and even that was rare.

"It's all right." He told her. "Just wait for me. I won't be long."

"O-Okay." She said, actually sounding sad, as if she, for some reason, wanted to stay with the alien.

Dib wondered why.

Zim felt Dib squeeze him a little tighter as he walked inside the incredibly warm resting chamber: the old Elite's last defence against the world.

"You've already given me the keys to your base, Zim. Why is that?" He heard Dib ask him, conflicted after what Clara had said.

Zim was too muddled to accurately reply, and he had only heard some of what he said. "Are we t-there yet...?"

"Yeah. We're here, Fudgekin."

He felt himself being lowered onto his specialized incubation pod. Its softness was second to none, and he at once melted into its smooth, silky padding. He wanted to dream again, wanted to pick up where he had left off with the ship and the other Irkens. But Dib wouldn't let him. He was forcing him back up again, and slipping on a uniform. His good antenna pricked up just a little – it was the first time he was expressing himself since he'd been rushed home for surgery. "You... you dressing Zim up for the war... Stink beast? Am I... am I g-going on the ship with the Armada?" He asked all this with his eyes still closed tight. "It's... it's so far to w-walk..."

"Oh Zim. These are your pyjamas. At least I think they are. They look kinda... thermal and they're softer and warmer than my nightwear. And they're fucking cute. Why do you wear such cute shit?"

Zim felt one of his arms being raised, and then felt Dib tuck it through the garb's silky sleeve. Already he felt much, much warmer.

"Is... is my b-belly swollen?" He asked worriedly, knowing that this would deeply affect his record for when he'd board the ship.

"Yeah, it is. But it'll take some time for the swelling to go down. The computer's prescribed you with drugs that act like diuretics and the Irken equivalent of antibiotics. But your squeedly spooch is inflamed, as is all the tissue in that area. Your blood was turning septic."

"I'll... I'll get d-disqualified!" He whimpered in fear and desolation.

"Hush now, Zim. You've got to rest."

There was still so much to do, so many chores to complete. He wanted to stay by Zim's side, but first he needed to know what on Earth this 'contaminant' was that Clara had removed, and what had breached level 9. Something told him the worst news was yet to come.

* * *

 **Dib07:** I know, it was over... too soon! Sorry for those who desperately want Gir, and who desperately want more normal Zim. At this point in the story I missed them too! But another cliffhanger. How did I manage it? But yes, GIR SHALL RETURN! In all his metal GLORY! Love you guys! See you next week for more!


	20. All Paths Lead to Gir

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

A shortish kinda chapter this time. Anway, just gotta say, REALLY MADLY HAPPY that this story is enjoying 200 reviews/support nudges! HOW?

HOW!

If I fed Zim every single review as if it was candy he'd be about the size of a car. Or maybe bigger. Like a van or something. I dunno. I'm getting off topic, but still!

HOw!

So I am here to present to you more madness!

In the meantime I cannot get OVER the support/love/kind words/sweet nudges and shared excitement. This has been such an endearing journey. I have so many readers to personally thank at the end of this! I'm so happy!

Zim, you cutie! So many ppl love you!

P.S Whoever has been voting on what they like about my writing, a very special THANK YOU! I give you a digital cookie! It's really interesting to see what it is that people are fond of. ^^

* * *

 **Weevmo (Saving Zim)**

You know, I'm so thrilled you enjoyed the chapter! No joke, sometimes I think my chapters are downright boring, and not terribly exciting, so I am awed into a pile of happy-mush when you say it was anything but! The story is going to get real fast again, and man is it going to get MAD! So I guess it was good to have some respite earlier, and to have that much needed chat between Dib and Clara. So yes, I am fired up for the later chapters!

Ah! Well, there is a trick in that! If left on his own, Zim could never have walked again, and we are so gonna get to that! I can't remember for the life of me which chapter it is, but a crucial flashback to that is coming up. I wonder what you'll think! I LOVED writing flashbacks to this story!

Thanks for letting me know about your staggeringly awesome pictures! I'mma gonna use the scientist one for Debacle! If I keep my head on, I need to change the image for this story too. Thanks again! Have a flipping fantastic cool day! (glad you were able to fix your computer too! I wouldn't know what I'd do without mine, and it's getting as old as Zim is... *tears*)

 **Weemo (If Only I Could)**

Omg I'm shy! I can't believe you read that! When I saw your review, I was like 'no, she didn't read it, did she?' Ah that oneshot was just intense and... ah raw. And grisly. There was blood in it! How could I? Hope you remembered your password, but if not, you can always make another? I have so many passwords for so MANY things. It's insane. When I start to become senile, I am so doomed. BTW that was an awesome review with just your phone! I suck at making reviews with just my phone. I have tried. The typos! The typos! Yeah, I've read one or two where Dib is just nuts, and without any grey inbetween, which breaks the realism/immersion for me. It was odd, writing Dib on the other end of the scale like that. But I got into it too easily once I started. Plus it was fun writing it in first person: such a fresher take. Thanks again! I had no idea you'd stick your head in and read that too! I'm so privileged! And shy! I want to hide behind a curtain or something!

 **GeekySkeleton**

Oooh I have you scared? Oh man you hang in there! It's going to get pretty rough! This is nothing so far! Omg! Truth me told, I was more scared for Dib than I was of Zim. Zim at least can bounce around with his PAK legs, and has tools. Dib? Urm, Dib has a cool jacket! Thanks for loving the previous chapter. I am such an anxious uploader that I think every single chapter is a failure somehow, in someway. When people love it, I'm like, really? Oh thank gosh! I did something right! Yeah, I'm still daunted at uploading all 50! But doing thus will give me a little more time to upload that heinous Debacle. XD So I guess it's done me a favour as well? But scrapping out chapters I think would have ruined this story at its core. Jamming everything together for the final 10 chapters would have just made it rushed and messy. Now it can stretch its legs. XD Thanks for the beautiful words and gorgeous support. This is your adventure, and I love that you are excited reading it!

 **moops**

I hope so! because I don't think Dib is! XDXDXDXD Makes you wonder what Zim would do in this situation if he wasn't conked out... He is a master of devices after all!

 **Guest**

Ooh guest! It's coming! This isn't even a taste! Bonkers robots be bonkers!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 23: All Paths Lead to Gir**

"Is... is my b-belly still swollen?"

When Zim squeaked this, Dib was very hopeful, thinking that the Irken had finally broken out of his hallucinations, or whatever world he was in, and was finally edging into reality.

"Yeah, it is. But it'll take some time for the swelling to go down. The computer's prescribed you with drugs that act kinda like diuretics and the Irken equivalent of antibiotics. But your squeedly spooch is inflamed, as is all the tissue in that area. Your blood was turning septic."

But then his response distilled Dib's doubts, and he knew then that Zim still believed he was halfway to some Irken routine that requested his attendance. "I'll... I'll get d-disqualified!"

"Hush now, Zim. You've got to rest."

"But the Irkens! I have to go! T-The Tallest n-need me!"

Dib sat on the pod with him and laid Zim down. He tucked the electric blanket around him and switched it on at the wall. The human device he had bought for him that Christmas looked incredibly out of place in a room starkly filled with Irken paraphernalia.

 _This place is incredible._

Though the chamber did not boost size or grandeur, it was cute and perfectly functional. There were lock-down doors to the one and only entrance, and along the wall was a fridge containing food stuffs and across from it was what he believed to be a medi-unit. Attached to it was a portable apparatus with little oxygen tanks lined up along the wall. Zim still wore his drip, and special Irken medicine was being fed into his system steadily. Dib reached up, grabbed the apparatus equipped with a mask, and pulled it tight over Zim's face. Zim's eyes twitched, and he murmured something, but his words could not be deciphered. Dib did not ask him to elaborate. The poorly invader had been through too much all in one day.

Dib had no idea what the time was, or what the weather was like outside. Being in his base made him feel very cut-off from the real world, so much so that you could lose days at a time without realizing it. As it was, he was hungry, tired and thirsty. He wanted to go back home, and he wanted to hug Clara and congratulate her on a job well done. Then he wanted to slip into his own bed after smoking a whole pack of cigarettes. But he knew Zim's fight wasn't over yet. Leaving him now would do more harm than good, even after all they had done, and all the time they had sacrificed.

Zim _was_ still breathing. This was an achievement he was proud of, but the battle had left him exhausted. No doubt Clara was as well.

After giving Zim time to get a little better, he'd need to put him back in the autodoc again for a fresh analysis. And be prepared for the results when they came.

He stretched, feeling the kinks in his back straighten out again.

"Good night, Fudgekin."

Letting loose a big yawn, he left Zim's side and returned to Clara. The force field dissipated when he drew close to it, permitting him with a way out. Before he could say anything to her, whether it be a big apology or weak congratulations, it was Clara who hugged him, drawing him into her arms. Then she burst into tears.

It surprised Dib. Out of all the outcomes, he had not expected this. But then as he melted into her embrace, he realized he'd pulled her through a lot of emotional traumas. No doubt performing such a surgery had scared her, and was something she'd never want to do again.

She had cut through Zim's living tissue, opening up an already damaged wound to get at the badness inside. The smell had been really bad, as the infection inside had spread, tainting all nearby organs and tissue until Zim's blood was running yellowy green. Once she had located the culprit, she had pulled it out. He had not known what it was at first, for it was covered in blood and bits of flesh. But he disposed of it in an Irken flask and ordered the computer to guide him through the next stage of instructions. The last part was pretty simple. All they had to do was sit back and watch as a mechanical arm distended from the ceiling and began to seal up Zim's side with a surgical laser that glued the wound back up again. His side didn't look as smooth as it once did, and may never be again, but at least it was closed up, and at last there was no more bleeding.

He felt Clara shaking.

They returned to the biological repair bay, and turned back into the room where Clara had performed the surgery.

Now that they had returned, Dib was appalled to see the blood still staining the surface of the bench, and the little dirty Irken flask filled with fleshy deposits. It was over, but it wasn't over in his head. What he witnessed, what he felt, and what he saw kept playing back in his mind like a movie. Clara had cut open his alien: something he had always wanted to witness as a kid. It disgusted him now. Made him realize just how moronic and stupid he was back then.

There wasn't any fun in cutting anything up.

"Assistance is required on level 9." The computer reminded them in its same apathetic tones. Dib was sure that if a fire broke out in the base, the computer would still retain its calm directives.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm getting to it. What kind of security breach is it?"

"Level 5 security breach."

Dib had no idea if that was good or bad.

He picked up the flask and ran it under some water using the strange-looking sink at the back. The water was crystal clear, and smelt chemically. _I bet he's sterilized it._ Dib thought.

Clara was looking around pensively.

The water helped clear away the blood and gore residue, leaving behind the tiny metallic object.

Draining it of water, Dib took it back with him to the bench and rattled it around inside.

 _Doesn't look like a bullet._ He thought sparingly. _Maybe it's a piece of shrapnel._

 _What an odd thing to get lodged in your side, Fudgekin._

And even stranger: _How could he not have noticed? How long has he been walking around, with this festering away inside him?_

 _I don't understand. Why didn't he come to me for help?_

"Computer." He said, "Analyze the contents in this flask. What is its origin?"

"Please place material in the scanner array. Process will take five minutes."

After being guided by the computer, he found that the scanner array was some glass dome-like machine that accepted small to medium sized objects for analysis. He picked up the metal object with the tweezers and placed them on the disc inside. Then the door snapped to a close. But he wasn't going to wait around. Now he had to check level 9.

 _Will my chores ever end?_

He was aware that he was not supposed to go anywhere near level 9, even though he had broken that rule already. But now the computer was preaching about security and that 'assistance' was required. He suspected a burst pipe, or maybe Gir had broken something, or one of Zim's forgotten experiments was running loose on that level.

"Clara, you'd better go back to my place. Or go to your own home and wait for me." He suggested. Clara looked tired. She had experienced a lot. She kept rubbing at her arm nervously, and jumping at every announcement the computer made. She was a creature of nature and beauty, not artificial constructs, computers and alien wizardry.

"And Zim? Small animals tend to go into shock after a major surgery. Alien or not, he can't be immortal. I should stay and..."

"I'll keep an eye on him. But thank you." Really he was worried that Clara would faint, or drop with mental exhaustion. She needed to rest. It was unhealthy to keep bombarding her with new things. And the very idea of 'aliens' was traumatising enough. Besides, he did not trust Zim's base, and only he had permission. Clara did not. Anything could harm her, security or otherwise, until Zim actually got up and laid down his defensive protocols for her.

Dib took her back to the top floor of Zim's house. Clara was reluctant to leave, but relieved as well. She liked open spaces, and tended to get claustrophobic.

"I'm going to have a bath." She said, managing a shy smile.

Dib kissed her, and opened the door. "I'll see you soon, okay? And thank you. For staying."

She paused, actually unwilling to leave. She added: "I'm glad I chose you." Then, "I'll come back to check on... Zim."

He watched her get back in her car, and waved at her as she pulled out onto the road.

Meanwhile, his battle wasn't over yet.

Dib got back into the conduit and it descended to the lower floors.

He was still bedazzled by the metal object's discovery. It truly did baffle him. Since when had Zim started collecting lethal objects in his body without noticing? It had been inside him for weeks, if it had caused his original injury when Dib had to drop by his base after Gir had called him up. And Gir was presumably the only witness. Maybe he had a better idea of what had happened? But getting anything out of that robot was like trying to get a pig to fly.

He made it to level 9 in minutes, and noticed at once the dusty rubble and metal chunks littering a hallway that was once sparse and open. The containment chamber had been breached; one of its walls had utterly collapsed. A red warning light was flashing across the room and a low siren was filling his ears with noise.

The human scrambled over the debris, fearing that Gir had been caught in the avalanche of rubble. But there was no sign of him anywhere.

 _He must have escaped. Maybe he broke out by himself._

Dib turned around and almost fell back into the rubble from alarm.

"Hi there, Dib!" Gir said, waving at him with a dopey grin on his face.

Dib put a hand on his chest, trying to catch his breath. "Holy pancakes! Don't scare me like that!"

"I'm sorry. You wanna play with me? I have some French dolls upstairs."

"Gir, did you break out of the containment room?"

"Yes!" He said, his little tongue poking out of his metal mouth. "It was fun!"

"Are you supposed to be out? Didn't Zim put you in there for a reason?"

Gir shrugged, as he often seemed to be doing of late. "Why don't you ask him?"

"I can't. He's really ill and half of what I tell him goes right out the window. Besides, I can't afford him to worry about anything. His heart might give out."

"Ooh." Said Gir, as if he understood. He looked genuinely sad for a moment - just a mini moment. Then he grabbed Dib's hand and started leading him towards the conduit. "Let's play house! I'll be the dad, you can be the little baby sister! We can make Zim all better!"

"Gir! I don't have time to play right now! I have about a hundred things still to do!"

"You can work later! Work is bad! Work makes you old!"

That Dib found, he could not argue with. Even so, as he looked down, discerning the hand that Gir was holding him with, he noticed that his thumb was missing. Normally this wasn't so unusual. Gir had his mishaps and he didn't take care of himself, relying instead on Zim to do all his manual repairs. And Zim did this with parental affection, affection an Irken was not allowed to show. But his mind flittered once to the metal object he found buried in Zim's spooch.

 _No. It couldn't be. That's just silly._

Hadn't Gir revealed his hand to him in the containment room? Saying: _"I can't find it. I've been looking ALL over fer it. Maybe it's gone on a journey? Like in da movies?"_

Back in the conduit, Dib pried his hand from Gir's.

"Did Zim lock you up because you foiled his plans, Gir?" He tried again, hoping for some slim answer in the robot's riddles.

"Plans? I like plans! I don't like maintance though. Maintance scares me."

"It's maintenance, not maintance."

"Yes!" Gir complied, looking pleased. "I wanna run around and jump likes a monkey! But ONLY if Zim can come and see! I want him better REAL BAD!"

"Look, I'll bring you with me, but only if you PROMISE to stay quiet. Zim is sleeping and it's _imperative_ that we don't frighten him."

"What's 'im-PAR-itive?"

Dib didn't have time for these games. "Promise me, Gir. Or I'll have the computer lock you up in storage or something."

He looked sad. Dib was never sure how genuine these 'emotions' were. "I'm sorry." Gir said, and as if on cue, his voice was dampened down a notch. "How's this?"

Dib nodded his approval. "Much better."

They returned to level 7, and Dib went marching off to the surgical room, passing the resting chamber on the way there. Because no one had informed the security system, the resting chamber doors remained open: admitting anyone welcome.

Dib returned to the surgical chamber and stood before the analysis array. "Computer," he said, "tell me the results!"

"Analysis ready." The system replied. "Components are of S.I.R unit origin. Containing Irken metal compounds and aloldi substances."

Dib's eyes narrowed. "Excuse me? S.I.R unit origin?"

"That is correct. S.I.R is an abbreviation of 'Standard Retrieval Unit.' This specific fragment is from Gir's right hand."

It blew over Dib's head for a moment, for he was about to just nod his head and denote it as another unfortunate accident that Zim had suffered. Then his mind clicked and he stood there, a little stumped, and unpleasantly surprised. "Excuse me? This fragment is Gir's thumb and it was lodged in Zim's side?"

"That is correct."

He turned and Gir was there, smiling happily. "I'm being real quiet!" He said with a wink. "Can we see Master now? I'm being gooood! Goodie good, good!"

"Gir." He said, for at that moment his mind went dry of responses. He wasn't sure if he was supposed to feel afraid, or just plain confused. The only one who could help him was deep in medicated sleep.

But maybe he was wrong in his suspicions.

Maybe Zim had landed heavily on Gir's thumb when it had already fallen loose from his hand.

Maybe Zim had even swallowed the damn thing, and Gir was no way involved in any crime.

But he vividly remembered Gir calling him up that night, and finding Zim in a pool of green blood like it had just happened. The blood had still been warm. And Gir was equally drenched in it.

Why else had the robot been in a high-security containment room? Why the recorded warnings?

His mind had already come to a solution, but in his heart, he still doubted. The outcome was too severe, too impossible.

Gir couldn't possibly hurt Zim.

So he tried a diplomatic approach. "How about we watch TV?" He suggested, trying to smile. "I'm rather hungry and I could go for some snacks. Zim will be okay for awhile. We can see him later."

"Yay! TV!"

It was a relief. Dib had too much to think about, and he suddenly doubted everything. He was now doubly glad he had sent Clara back home.

He followed Gir down the short walkway and to the conduit. Once there, Gir flung up his hand to touch the corresponding button. Helplessly, Dib flinched away, suddenly afraid of the robot's capabilities. But Gir merely smiled an almost knowing smile, and he hit the button. The conduit then shot upwards to reach the upper floor of Zim's base.

 _I'm trapped with him. If he does anything, I have nowhere to go._

 _But he's Gir! He's pretty much harmless! There's just no way! He's never been aggressive! Has he?_

These conflicting thoughts raced around in his head like a storm: fuelled by confusion and fear. It felt like he was scratching the surface of some great conspiracy.

The conduit finally stopped and Gir reached upwards and poked his way out of the bin's lid. Dib followed. Soon they were both standing in Zim's almost-ordinarily-looking kitchen.

It was dark outside. The clock on the kitchen wall chimed once. It was 4:30 in the morning.

Keeping an eye on Gir, he opened the fridge door and overviewed the selection of strange goodies. Some things he recognised straight away. There was a carton of milk, a packet of tea bags and coffee bags, ( _why is Zim keeping them in the fridge_? He thought, perplexed), there was a loaf of half-eaten bread and cans of cans of peaches. Amongst these human items were bland packages with the Irken insignia containing suspicious ingredients. They looked more like military ration packs than actual food. He opened one and smelled the contents. To him it looked like brown flour, only more compact. He licked his finger and prodded it into the mixture. Upon licking it again, he found that it tasted like cinnamon.

Gir grabbed a can of peaches and wrenched open the metal lid with ease before glugging down the contents. Licking his lips, he reached for another and repeated the same actions.

Dib began to go through Zim's cupboards as well, hoping for a microwavable meal. He was pretty sure Zim wouldn't mind. He could take it as down payment for saving his life.

He found a packet of noodles, which he took straight away to eat for later, only to find that Zim had been hoarding lots and lots of joint-ease lotions. They were all lined up on the shelf in militaristic fashion. Dib reached for one and read what was on the label:

' _Joint-Ease cream.'_

' _Contains oil of wintergreen, camphor and menthol. When rubbed on the skin, this ointment creates a feeling of heat over the painful joint or muscle, which may help soothe painful arthritis joints._

 _Apply where necessary up to 5 times daily.'_

To think that out of pride and shame, the Irken had never gone to Dib for advise, and had gone on to research these things alone while his symptoms worsened.

 _Oh Zim._

He took the noodles, poured them out into a saucepan and turned up the heat on the stove, a stove that was surprisingly normal to use. There was no weird gadgetry science here, and no otherworldly techno-madness. The normality was so very settling.

Zim had poop soda too, and he took one and opened it, guzzling down the contents with relish. Who knew how good simple noodles and diet poop soda was?

After dinner he stuck the unwashed plate in the sink and settled down on the couch next to Gir with a second soda. The robot was watching a medical programme. Dib didn't like it at all. It freshly opened up the horrors he had suffered only hours ago.

Gir was munching from a pack of nachos. No doubt Zim needed to eat too. Dib had no idea how long it had been since Zim had last eaten anything. The drip would help keep his fluids up, but that was all.

 _I'll go up there in five minutes. Just give me five more minutes._

He was dozing off.

He had been wide awake for almost twenty four hours and everything was catching up to him. After eating that meal, he had a huge desire to just sleep.

Three things were plaguing his mind, and trying to stem the tide of exhaustion:

 _Gotta call Clara. Ask how she's holding up. Hope she won't go back on her word and call the police._

 _Must check on Zim. Give him food to eat._

 _Gir. I'm dropping my guard right next to him. What if he does... something?_

But he didn't want to move. He just wanted to sleep.

He opened his pack of cigarettes and produced his lighter. When he was about to light one, Gir's little tinny voice spoke up. "You shouldn't do that." He said.

"Why? Does this place have smoke detectors?"

When Gir didn't answer: just staring at him as if he was waiting for Dib to answer, the human just shrugged and opened the front door, stepping out into the clean, crisp air. The sun had not yet risen and the stars were still strung out across the sky in their dozens. Turn off all man-made light, and Dib would no doubt see hundreds of thousands of stars. But right now he was happy just to smoke a cigarette or two.

He thought of calling Clara, and then remembered she might be having her bath, or she'd gone straight to bed. He decided to text her instead before returning to his cigarette.

The lawn gnomes stood at their usual sentry positions and the streetlamps in Zim's culdersack created little pools of light at their bases. The night world was incredibly peaceful.

And at least it had stopped raining.

 _That's really sweet of Clara. To come and help when she did._

She had only met Zim twice, and twice those times Zim had said the most awkward of things about gestation periods and babies. It was amusing to think of how she'd react once he was awake and talking.

He took a long drag on his cigarette.

 _The things I do for an alien._

He turned to go back in, flinging his used cigarette butt into the bushes. Gir opened the door for him, grinning his wide, cheesy grin.

Dib stepped inside, about to do his last duty before a well-deserved nap when the robot grabbed his arm from behind and flung him down to the ground. Horrified, Dib went to get up, rubbing at the new bruise on the back of his head. "Gir, what the hell? That hurt!"

When Gir turned to him, he saw that his wide eyes had turned into angry, red slits.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Omg I've done it again, haven't I? Jeez this story somehow ended up with about a hundred cliffhangers. Anyway, we still don't know a whole lot! I can't even remember what happens next chapter. I can't believe Zim was out for this long!


	21. The Recording

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

An update! Here! Now! :) To feed you all! Hahaha! This to me was a filler, but it will be the last filler for literally ages! After this you are all gonna need seatbelts or something!

Thank you all again for your loyal support, praise and love. Because I LOVE YOU ALL! And next week is gonna be super exciting for me, cuz now it's my turn to get excited and impatient to show you the chapter after this one! XDXDXD

* * *

 **Guest**

Gir is just so mad! Dib's gonna need some running trainers or something methinks! I would be terrified! Mad Gir is scary Gir! Put him in a horror movie and I'm out!

 **moops**

So bad! So very bad! Trust me, it gets worse!

 **Guest**

Uh, not so much of a cliffhanger this time, but ah... you wait until next week! Because I am struggling to wait already!

 **GeekySkeleton**

Yeah, Gir was kinda like a ticking time bomb all through that chapter, just waiting to pop out his weapons of super madness! Sadly this chapter isn't so suspenseful, I guess? I kinda go blind reading my own chapters. XD I know what happens too well, lol. But I loved writing the next chapter. Whenever Zim gets mad/stubborn/reveals the fighter in him I get so happy! Thanks for the stupendous review, GeekySkeleton! Happy reading!

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

(omg I cannot get enough of your reviews! Glad you have the internet back!) Yeah, it's kinda hard to predict Gir, even if, say, he wasn't going to go ape-nuts and start shooting the place up! XD Only Zim truly understood that robot inside and out, and even he was shocked by what Gir did waay back in chapter 1. That robot is just so... spontaneous! YES! You remembered that Dib left Zim's panic room door wide open! It has to be manually installed for maximum security, for the computer only does what it is told! Give yourself a pat on the back! Sometimes I write so much that I think not everyone remembers things, because there is just too much to remember!

Oh I can so imagine Zim coming out with a shotgun or something and shouting: 'Some of us are trying to SLEEP! Keep it DOWN out there! Because if I have to start shooting, I don't know if I will stop!'

Yeah, judging by Zim's great age, Dib would still be a kid to him, and so would Gir! Omg I feel so sorry for him! What have I done?

Yup! Nasty old robot thumb in nasty wound! Ah, for the septic tissue, Zim is on a giga course of antibiotics at the moment. I think the computer dispensed it last chapter? Oooh yes, you remembered those autodoc symptoms well, my friend! Give yourself another pat on the back! The detail in this story is just... immense. It is hard to keep up, I admit! And as for your question, no, that autodoc didn't fix anything. All it did was give Zim what his body needed to sustain life, i.e. oxygen, donated blood, warmth, etc. As for his heart... well... Zim's got a tough wall to climb, shall we say? Just as well he loves a challenge! (Don't worry, he has safety rope!)

You are going to get all the snuggly Zim, next chapter! ALL OF IT! You are gonna LOVE IT!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 21 (24): The Recording**

"Urm... Gir? What are you doing?" He tried to crawl backwards, his eyes trained on the little robot who stood over him like an automated weapon that fired upon anything that moved. That cheerful sunny grin had gone, replaced with darkly red-rimmed eyes. His posture was different too. No longer slouched and at-ease, this new stance was erect, alert and aggressive.

"You are trespassing on enemy territory. All new threats must be eliminated for the good of the Irken Empire!" A pack of missiles erupted from Gir's shoulder blades and locked-on to Dib, who still sat beneath his shadow, utterly clueless. "Missiles launching! Prepare for evasive action!"

Dib threw himself to his feet and dived for the door. He had to get out! Had to get away!

Instinctively he raced for the open world, where humans frolicked, and life was that much more normal. Behind him a battalion of missiles exploded from the pack and chased after him. Dib opened the door, causing one rocket to explode on the doorframe on impact. Zim's installed shield took the force, saving the base from damage.

Now Dib was outside, racing down the gnome-lawn and towards the road. Several more missiles swept towards him, chasing his coattails with deadly intent.

He leapt behind a car and another exploded into it, showering the car to bits. Dib was thrown across the road, his Irken-blood-soaked coat now smouldering with flames. He wrenched it off his shoulders and left it to burn as he raced for new cover. The rest of the missiles scattered, leaving craters in the road as they imploded.

By now Dib was hiding behind a tree in the neighbour's front lawn. He was shaking all over, heavy sweat running down his armpits.

 _What the fuck just happened?_

He was breathing hard and fast, his blood thick with adrenaline.

Gir had just attacked him, for no reason!

The robot stood without a disguise on Zim's front lawn, scanning for him. His red eyes surveyed the area like searchlights. He did this for some time, and when a bird hooted on a tree branch, he shot that with his eyes. The red laser fire was instantaneous. The bird flopped dead from the tree, its body shot clean through.

Dib slapped a hand over his mouth to keep from screaming.

 _Not happening!_

 _This is NOT happening!_

His heart was racing. His shirt was soaked with cold, nervous sweat.

Gir scanned the lawn one final time, and looked in Dib's direction last, even though Dib was perfectly concealed behind a tree some two houses down. Then the robot did a quick military U turn, Zim-fashion, and walked back into the base, closing the door aggressively behind him.

In the distance, Dib could hear the sirens of the emergency services on their way.

 _I gotta get out of here!_

He was so lucky he had escaped. So lucky he was alive! He even looked down at his body, ticking off his limbs to find that none had holes in.

Dib ducked low along the neighbour's hedges, and then ran out towards the sidewalk. When he had passed several houses while running down the path towards his car, he stopped abruptly and then turned towards the alien's house with horror clear on his face.

Zim was still in there.

Unprotected. Unguarded.

Had he left the resting chamber open? He was pretty sure he had.

There was nothing to stop Gir from waltzing in there, and going ape-shit crazy.

And Zim was intoxicated with medication. He wouldn't stand a chance.

 _I can't go back in there!_

To do was so insane, even for him.

But Zim's treatment wasn't yet over. He needed to be nursed through his recovery, if he'd recover at all.

And Gir... Gir had broken out of the containment room! What was he supposed to do now?

 _How come the robot's gone crazy? Did Zim make it happen? Was it unplanned? Why did Zim NEVER say anything? Surely this has gone on for some time? And he's been suffering quietly?_

 _Oh, why me?_

He stood on the sidewalk while the sirens grew louder. No doubt the cops would peer at the miniature craters and exploded car and just assume this area had been struck by little meteorites. Staying around to be questioned would be counter-productive.

 _But going back in there?_

Against his greater instinct, he started running back towards the Irken's house. It was one of the hardest things he had ever had to do.

xxx

He rushed back inside, and there Gir was again to greet him with a platoon of weapons. Plasma guns and automatic weapons had risen out of his head compartment and swivelled round to target Dib.

"Re-engaging intruder! Locked on!"

"Gir!" He shouted, wondering if this was even worth trying. "Listen to me! You've gone... more crazy than usual! Please, stop what you are doing!"

"Must kill!"

"What... what is your directive?"

"Eliminate all hostiles! That is all!"

Gir had no purpose. No sense. He was following no orders, only random coding in his programming.

Then Dib's pink necklace swung forwards as he had no jacket to hide it, and Gir seemed to spot it at once. His eyes melted to their cyan counterparts and his plethora of weapons held fast. And he did not attack.

"Master... Master's medicine... Why do yous have it?"

"Wait? What?"

His confusion only seemed to re-engage Gir again, and his lethal aggression.

Those mad red eyes returned, and the robot bent forwards, his back riddled with every Irken gun imaginable.

Gir opened fire, and bullets and lasers creamed the walls, delivering overkill to all he targeted. The installed shield struggled to take it all, and it faltered, allowing the wall to sag with damage and the couch to pepper with bullets. Dib slid past him and into the kitchen, but not without injury. A bullet creased his arm, turning it red instantly.

Without Zim to maintain his base's defences, there was only so much it could take until it crumbled beneath Gir's duress.

Zim's roboparents, barely able to function now, emerged from their designated storage rooms with open arms.

"Welcome home, son!"

Gir blitzed them all to burning metal bits. Then he stood over the corpses, victorious. "Must kill!" He repeated, even though what he stood over was quite clearly dead.

Dib fell headlong into the bin and awkwardly crash-landed onto the floor of the conduit. While he lay in a heap, he yelled frantically: "Computer! Take me to level 7! And then lock down the elevator! Let no one else come down here!"

"Request denied. You do not have authority to employ the defences."

"But the base is in jeopardy! Please accept my request!" He righted himself slowly and looked to his arm. Funnily enough, it was his right arm again, right above his old scar. Blood was leaking down freshly torn flesh. He slipped off his belt to try and professionally tourniquet the wound without panicking. The sight of red blood was enough to cause any human to lose their mind and faint. Green blood never seemed to present the same effect to him.

He was lucky. The bullet had skimmed his flesh deeply, but it had run through, leaving him the moment it had entered.

"Awaiting further instructions from Master Zim." The computer returned after a four-second hesitation, which was unusual. The computer rarely ever hesitated. Its answers were usually point-blank in their bluntness and instance.

"You won't get any instructions from him!" Dib shouted, applying pressure to his upper arm as he continued to bleed out. "I am the only one able to issue commands! Zim gave me access!"

"Master Zim gave you limited access to most basic internal functions. But that is where your privilege ends. Besides which, more complex systems require Irken command only."

"But Gir will destroy us all! Can't you just stop him instead?"

"Unable to comply. Only the containment chamber could hold him."

Dib couldn't believe he was forced to say this. "Then... then destroy him!" It made him sick just saying it. Destroy Gir? Zim's only companion? But he felt that he had been pushed too far. The walls were crumbling in his mindscape, and there was fire burning all around. He had to do something, or the fire would consume him.

"Unable to comply. Master Zim will not allow it."

"What?"

"Protection code 111. The highest priority code. Anyone under this code cannot be harmed under any circumstances."

"Even if Zim's mission is threatened?"

"That is correct. Zim has stated that even in the event of his death, he wants Gir protected."

Dib leaned against the wall of the conduit, ready to give up.

 _Why is Gir like this?_

 _What changed so suddenly?_

 _Why did you never tell me, Zim?_

 _You... you'd rather protect him, than your own goals?_

"I can't stop Gir... and I can't destroy him." He whispered to himself. Zim's arrogance had sealed his fate, and his mission. The Irken was absolutely insane.

Still, Dib's passion remained, and though he was hurting and his arm was bloody, he awkwardly rose to his feet and stood, defiant as the conduit came to rest at level 7.

Luckily there appeared to be no sign of any disturbances. Gir had not yet made it down here, at all.

He ran to the resting chamber and hit the button on the inside of the door that was at about waist-height. Even though he did not know what it did, its function had to mean only one thing. After pushing it, various reinforced doors behind him slid shut, sealing him from the rest of the level. This at least gave Dib a sense of safety. If this was the last stronghold left, so be it.

Zim lay where he had left him; wearily breathing in recycled air from the apparatus. His skin was still a septic-whitish green and his eyes were closed in deep sleep.

Dib yanked open the side-wall medi-unit and tossed out from gauze for himself. Droplets of red blood from his arm began to dot the floor copiously.

It hurt! It bloody hurt!

 _How come Gir was all right before? He was fine! Better than fine! Did I trigger something? Did I do something by mistake that he didn't like? And the necklace? What the hell?_

He wrapped the gauze tight around his bloody wound using his teeth, and then tied the frayed ends into a firm knot. He untied the belt and dumped it to the floor, about ready to cry from the shock of Gir's open hostility.

This sucked.

He approached the little sleeping alien and gently nudged his shoulder. "Zim? Hey, Zim. I need you. Gir's acting all crazy and stuff! Wake up! Please!"

Zim stirred, and he moaned feebly. It was clear that he was still too unwell, still too drugged to be of much use to anyone. He coughed and choked, and his harder breathing turned into difficult wheezes.

"Zim!" He spoke a little louder to his right antenna to overcome the Irken's deafness, "The base has been breached! You need to lay down some fortification before he destroys this whole place! I need help! I can't do this on my own!"

Zim cranked open one eye, and its deep, fuchsia colour was now tinged whitish grey. Feebly he lifted an arm from the blanket and shakily rose a clawed hand out of its depths. Dib waited, hoping Zim would deliver some wisdom, or at least provide a kind of solution. The Irken pointed at something across the little room – at a tiny metal unit. Dib looked at him and frowned. "You want something? I... I don't get it."

Still, he walked towards this little metal storage unit and he glanced back over at Zim for confirmation. But Zim had sunken back down again and had passed out, his claw swinging lifelessly from his blankets.

Dib wrenched open the top drawer and found a small metal disc.

He took it out and inspected it with doubt and disinterest. What the hell was this? Another riddle? Or was Zim just out of his mind?

While he stared at it, truly feeling out of his depth, a computer console unfolded out from beneath the metal unit.

"Insert disc into the memory drive." Spoke the computer somewhere above him, as if frustrated at his confusion.

"All right. What's the worst that can happen?"

He inserted the little disc into a side compartment that looked like the right size and shape to accept it. The little screen started off showing him nothing but bad static and Dib was worried he'd inserted it in the wrong way, or just wasn't doing it right when the fuzz dissipated and he was looking at his arch nemesis. It was a video recording of Zim. He stood before the camera, smiling cunningly, as he always used to before he got really old.

Dib held his arm, feeling the blood leak into the gauze.

"Hiya there stink beast. Congratulations on finding this disk, I guess." But then his smile fell away. Dib could not help noticing how croaky and tired his voice sounded. "You watching me, is bad I suppose. It means something's been breached, or I myself am dead." He smiled wistfully again as if he wasn't discussing the darkest possibilities of fate. "I hope you and your smelly kind weren't involved. I really do. Anyway!" His grin died this time, and he never smiled again for the rest of the video. "Another reason you may be watching this is because I couldn't fix Gir."

 _Fix Gir?_

Dib watched the video in harrowing dismay. When had Zim recorded this? And what gave him the insight to even do this? It was clear in the video that Zim was much healthier. He was back in his full invader attire, and his skin was that wholesome lime-green tone. But the human could still discern a swelling in Zim's tummy under his uniform, and there were pronounced wrinkles under the Irken's bright, fuchsia eyes.

"You see, I've tried. That damnable S.I.R unit needs a new modulator _and_ modifier chip. But the Tallest could not give me what I requested. This all started with..." He fell to coughing, and the video suddenly skipped. Zim had obviously made various edits in the video. After the break in the sequencing, Zim was back again, picking up where he had left off. "But, to my recollection, Gir's unusual behaviour started with an E.M.P blast. This affected my PAK too." He paused suddenly in the video as if all thought had escaped him. The video was cut again, and this time Zim was standing slightly off to the centre, rubbing on his side. "You see, Dib worm, it is my problem to fix. Invaders must be reliable and resourceful. I am also worried your pathetically DUMB interference will lead to your STUPID demise. The reason I never told you? I do not want you to destroy Gir. He is stupid, he is useless. He is garbage. But you see, he is also my only child. He is my family. You taught me that very word. And as such, he is the only family I shall ever have."

 _That's not true, Zim._

"I am in the process of making a containment chamber to keep him in. Yes, yes, it is brilliant! I designed it myself! And it shall hold Gir inside for all of time, if necessary. In due course, my body will be taken to the Fall, and the base will be destroyed. But not Gir. The base above will be blown to bits, and all the debris will bury my robot. I suppose the reason I wanted to make this stupid recording was because I wanted to say... uh...goodbye."

He held his chest as he squeaked up another few coughs. But this time the video did not break with any edits.

"Invaders do not say such melodramatic irrelevances. It's disgusting. Real disgusting and pointless. But! You have done well to be my enemy, Dib. You are a worthy foe. I only wish you had been an Irken. BUT! Better to die quick, than to succumb to a slow, nasty death by age. I suppose being killed by you or by Gir is a thankless mercy. I hope I shall fight. And uh... I... I want to say that I... pardon you. You are a cunning creature, Dib and you showed me mercy on that... insolent day. Mercy is a great weakness however, human. Do not do it again. And you have my jewel, don't you? The one I dropped? I keep... I keep FORGETTING things!"

And his calm demeanour broke for just a moment before he picked up the threads of his patience again which he had mastered for the recording.

"If I happen to be... uh... dead, throw it away. It is useless. Oh what am I saying? It's no big DEAL!" Another edit was pasted on the end of the last one. "Anyway, this is Zim..." And he even saluted. Saluted to Dib with all the muster he showed to his Tallest. But this time, one clawed hand was on his heart in a rare show of great respect. "...Signing off."

The recording ended, leaving Dib with nothing but a black screen with that last image of Zim saluting, hand on his chest.

Dib didn't know why, but emotion overcame him out of nowhere all at once. He had just been pardoned, and an incredible weight lifted from his shoulders.

Clara had mentioned it, but now it had been confirmed.

' _I couldn't fix Gir.'_

' _... started with an E.M.P blast.'_

' _I do not want you to destroy Gir.'_

' _And uh... I... I want to say that I... pardon you.'_

' _I hope I shall fight.'_

 _This just keeps getting worse._ He thought dourly.

' _So what are you gonna do? Sit back and cry about it?'_ Zim was there, beside him, claws on his shoulders. Or, at least, Dib imagined it that way. It's what he would have said, had he been young and healthy, his mind full of playful yearning and conquest. There was very little that ever set Zim back. That Irken had been like a yo-yo: always bouncing into it again.

Back then, Zim didn't care about anything.

Now he cared too much about everything.

"No. I'm going to do something about it." Dib said aloud to the ghost, to himself, to the computer. "My only way out of this horrible mess is you, Zim. Both of us are going to make it. I'm not turning my back on you."

' _Uh? I don't like the idea of 'teams.'' Besides, I've pardoned you, deaf-child. Go on. Walk. You know where the fucking door is. Don't make me shove you out.'_ Zim stood back a little, arms folded across his chest.

Dib pushed through the images and looked to the Irken – the _real_ Irken lying in the incubation pod.

His arm hurt, but it only strengthened his resolve. He was tired of mopping up the mess, tired of running, tired of having the computer turn him round in circles. He was going to take action.

Clara had done the hard part.

Now Dib would take care of the rest.

"I can still save you yet, Zim."

The ghost of his nemesis laughed at his back.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Okay, now that is out of the way, I just want to say this: I CANNOT WAIT to upload next week's chapter. It is going to be ALL the Zim! And there is going to be a lot of emotional scenes, more so than of late, and there's going to be another flashback, which will shed light on how Zim learned to walk again, and I know **Weevmo** has been looking forward to that for a _reeeeal_ long time. One more week, **Weevmo.** One more week! Plus the chapter's gonna be merged into 2 chapters to make it engaging, and longer without any splits! It's gonna be so, so good! And, and it's going to get super crazy, and super fun! This was the last chapter without any proper Zim in it. The rest is just... ugh! So good! We all need take-no-shit Irkens!


	22. The Struggle

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Right, first things first, this chapter is a combination of two chapters! And yes, Zim is back! At last! We'll be uncovering a lot more of his fiery-ness in the next few chapters, and the later half of _this_ chapter concerns a flashback. I was going to turn it into italics but that meant changing the already-existing italics into normal font and that takes too much time! XD So I just headed it as: flashback instead.

Anyway, this was a very fun and challenging chapter for me, _especially_ the latter half. I STRUGGLED writing Zim in the flashback, and I mean, STRUGGLED. When you take him out of his normal, controlled environment, and present him with something that takes him out of his security, omg I don't know what I'm doing. I don't think he knew what he was doing either. XD

Anway, anyway! Love you all! I hope this chapter sates you! And keeps you going! The support I have been receiving is just MASSIVE! The love you guys are giving me is priceless and beautiful and... it leaves me speechless.

* * *

 **moops**

Yeah, I should be handcuffed and hauled before the Jury for what I've written! XDXDXD

 **Guest**

THANK YOU! It is a bit of a ride, isn't it? Is it because I left Gir at the controls? XD Thank you for the lovely comment though, and I'm super-charged it's one of your favourites!

 **GeekySkeleton**

Not gonna lie, Dib got off easy, it is true. He can't afford to wind up in a hospital just yet! XD Thank you, I try my best! I'm super happy I can just push these chapters out, as they're all written and ready to go. There may be a few mistakes and I do my best to check 'em but every so often I spot a new one, ugh! XD Anyway, I'm really staggered you love these updates so much, and that I am getting wonderful feedback from you! It feeds me! :) I am very spoiled, I know! :D

 **Negs**

Ooh OOooh! Your review is so AWESOME! I keep getting such phenomenal feedback! SO HAPPY you picked this one up and started reading it! So uh, welcome to the crew! :D I hope you keep being thrilled with every update and I hope there is always something new I can offer you. It gets pretty action-packed from here on out, and pretty faster paced, to my recollection without spewing out any spoilers, lol. XD Oh Gir. Oh Zim. So much going wrong, and Dib is trying to hold onto their strings as they fray apart. It's going to be good though.

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

Yeah, Dib did learn a lot last chapter, and realized how deeply the hole of despair went. He could have quit, he could have thrown in the towel and left, but he came right back, and it earned him that visual recording, where he began to see Zim's emotions delicately unravelling. Yes, YES! Zim has so many layers! He is the HARDEST character I have and will ever write, and trust me, I have written a lot of tough customers! I pretty much thought I could write anybody, and then I met this stubborn Irken, and he's caused me to grind to a halt so many times. Especially THIS chapter. Zim is such a contradiction. He wears his heart on his sleeve, but paradoxically he can slam his emotions in cold storage and be a complete psycho. And god, I love him.

''That he does care about others, does admit to weaknesses and does have a soft side within that ferocious little body of his. I've always thought that for all Zim's bluster and strengths, his paranoia and zeal, there was something soft maybe even vulnerable in there too and you've brought it out masterfully here when Dib plays the recording.''

Oooh I needed to read something like this! OMG you know Zim so well! OMG I'm grinning so much my face is hurting! XD Thank you, thank you! Aw I blush!

And thank you sooo much again! Your thought-provoking compliments melt me! It's not easy, conveying feelings sometimes with these characters, and with Zim out of commission for the longest time, I wasn't sure how people would react. Zim's like the complicated inner workings of a clock, I guess. What you see on the outside is totally different to what you'd see on the inside. I dunno. I think I'm blurting crap again! XD

Ah! As for Zim's POV, awwww yes! That's coming, next chapter! (Be warned, it's not what you'll expect, or maybe it is? You know Zim well). I CAN'T say anything, uh! XD

Hahaha I'm always up to no good with my stories! I cannot stop writing IZ these days! I don't usually write so much in a fandom all at once. I like to keep a list on here to keep me organized and to reward myself by increasing its completion percentage. It helps me with those deadlines so I don't get lazy. 'Mercy' is another one of those dark ones, lol. Dark Dib madness and all that, lol.

I hope you're feeling much, MUCH better! I haven't had a virus for a long time now, but ugh they suck. So bad. Especially migraine-grade ones. Drink plenty and rest whenever you can. It must have been so boring, not being able to do anything, and with no energy. So keep safe, and concentrate on getting better. Hopefully this chapter will help! ^^ Us storytellers were made to entertain!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 22 (25+26): The Struggle**

Tears still stinging his eyes, he glanced over at the Irken resting in the incubation pod.

 _You... you pardoned me! You forgave me!_

Dib scrambled to his feet and skidded over to the bed. The worry ate at him. He felt like he had just seen Zim's ghost in that video, and that it had forecasted the immediate future.

He felt the cool, silky surface of the vial hanging from his neck with his fingers and went to see if he could twist it open in some way. Gir was crazy, and had probably assumed something differently about the vial. But he could not open it – he didn't know how to, for there was no seal or seam that he could find. He would have to leave it for now.

"Computer," he called, one hand resting on Zim's hand, "what does he require? Medicine? Food?"

"Nourishment is essential, as is medicine. Both are dispensed from the _Hurlin 8_."

"But... that's outside. On level 7. Gir could be out there."

The computer performed an obligatory scan right outside, and said, "There is no one outside the perimeter."

This didn't reassure Dib terribly well, but it had to do. Holding his bandaged arm, he approached the sealed doorway and slapped one hand on the button. The doors broke their perfect alignment and slotted themselves sideways, allowing easy access. Dib zipped out and headed for the biological repair bay next door. Because he had been in here so often now, he was getting used to where things were. This _Hurlin 8_ was a medium sized machine that was rounded at the top, and displayed a capsule sign on its sides. Dib had no idea what he was really doing: had in fact never known what he was doing since he'd returned Zim home, but so far he hadn't fucked up.

Taking a tray from a shelf, he lifted it below a slot in the machine, thinking it would eject capsules like a toy machine did after you put nickels inside. When nothing happened, he thumped his fist on it. Something jerked inside, and he could hear something rolling around from within.

 _Please, no more jargon-spewing questions. No more 'authority codes' and no more bullshit. Just give me what I need!_

His mental pleading may have worked. Capsules, three to be exact, rolled out of the slots and landed on Dib's outstretched tray. The capsules were a lot bigger than he was expecting and a lot heavier too. Each one was about the size of his fist. And their egg-like shells were all different in colour. One was pink, another was purple, and the last one was blue. It seemed that even Zim's medicine looked girly like everything else he possessed.

As he carried these back, the computer helpfully informed him of each capsule's function: "The pink capsule contains infection-fighting proteins. And the purple capsule contains gentle spooch-soothers that put a stop to any vomiting."

"And the blue one?"

"Specialized nourishment suited for Irken digestion. In layman's terms," the computer added almost as an insult to Dib's intelligence, "it means: food."

Back in the resting chamber, he reinstated the security doors that slid back into their locked positions. He swore he heard childish laughter outside, laughter that sounded suspiciously like Gir. But the computer had not warned him of any intrusion.

 _Must be hearing things._

 _Gir's getting to me._

He left the tray on a table he then pushed over towards the pod and sat next to Zim astride his many soft blankets. Carefully he tried nudging Zim awake once again with only one thing on his mind. "Zim? Hey, it's time to eat something. You gotta wake up."

Zim gurgled and muttered, his right antenna bobbing up and down ever so slightly.

Dib regretfully pulled off the mask from around his face and left it on the side. It had left a spherical mark around the Irken's mouth and invisible nose slits.

"It's just me, Fudgekin. You feel warm enough?" He commented. Zim's pink thermal pyjamas were doing a good job. However, when Dib went to feel his forehead, he found that he was still burning to the touch with fever. And Zim did not appear to be sweating. Was that good for an Irken? Or was that bad?

Zim grunted again, the sound strangely animalistic. Both his eyes opened this time, but they never opened very far. Dib was once again reminded at how whitish looking the orbs appeared to be.

With tenderness Dib had never shown him before, he gently got an arm around Zim and eased him into a sitting position. He then propped up some pillows and when he leaned Zim back, he was bolstered up by the support.

Zim blinked tiredly, still half asleep. His tongue was sticking out between his lips, and drool was dribbling down his chin. Dib made sure his little legs were well wrapped with blankets before he started unscrewing the capsules. Each one was sterilely sealed and contained its own separate spoon. Irkens were so fastidious when it came to germs. It was just as well though, really. Zim's immune system was too weak to combat anything new, and Dib worried about his own germs; and if his close contact with Zim was potentially harmful.

Before he started on the capsules, Dib had a bad recollection of the autodoc's symptomatic results. Gently he pulled Zim's arm towards him, rolling up the sleeve to inspect the old wounds. The cuts were healing, the skin just dappled with bruising. His side, glued tight from surgery, looked less inflamed. Then he peered at Zim's right eye and held the lid up slightly to see how it was fairing.

 _Did Gir do all this to you?_

 _You said nothing about it. Nothing at all to me._

 _I can't believe I care this much. What am I becoming? There are ghosts out there that need documenting, and here I am, babysitting my old enemy. Huh. Maybe I need to be mentally evaluated._

His eye looked good, both in fact. And neither of them were quite so opaque.

The Irken was grunting his malcontent at being touched. Dib took his delicate wrist in his large hands, and tried to feel for a pulse. As much as he gently pressed, he couldn't feel anything.

"Zim, does your chest hurt? Any dizziness or heart palpitations?"

 _Please say something! Tell me how you feel!_

Zim started to giggle. It was a meek little squeaky sound. "Wha... on Irk... is a plup-i-tation? Is that a huuuman t-type of f-fruit?"

"Um... well... you see..."

Zim softly smiled, absolutely out of it. "It's all to do with the blood... r-round and round and r-round..."

Dib had no idea what the invader was on about. The drugs had made him even more senile than before.

"Yes, Zim. Round and round."

Letting go of his wrist, he tried to examine his chest, only for Zim to curl back, grunting and squawking in that croaky whisper of his. "...A-away... Get a-away!"

"I'm sorry." He leant back a little to show that he was done with the examinations. "You hungry?" He then asked, knowing full well that Zim hadn't eaten anything for at least twenty-four hours.

Zim's eyes were drooping to a steady close. He seemed to melt against the propped cushions, unable to hold up his own self.

Dib sighed. "I guess I'll give you the purple one first? You're still fighting a deep infection and we need to get you feeling better." He dipped the spoon into the mixture – its consistency was a lot like milk. It even smelled sweet, reminding him of Calpol. "Zim, open your mouth."

Zim smiled laconically and giggled some. "A-Another shot of w-whisshey p-puhlease mister h-huuman b-bartender... s-sir...make it 219..."

"Irken drugs must be pretty powerful, huh?" Dib said, suspecting how doped up Zim was. They had made him pain and stress free, which was great news, but they seemed to have repressed his cognitive abilities quite severely. And Dib was very concerned that it might not be the drugs at all.

While Zim's mouth was open as he processed his incoherent sentence, Dib popped a spoonful of medicine into his mouth. For once he was no longer afraid of getting bitten.

Zim just dribbled half the dose back out again, and it began to soil the blankets. Dib grabbed a spare cloth from the medi-unit and used it as a bib – tying it around Zim's neck to catch anymore spillages.

He tried again. Zim was actually rather obedient, and opened his mouth upon request. The medicine probably tasted really good.

Some of what Zim drooled was blood. This alarmed Dib, and he hoped that this was just old discharge from before the surgery and nothing new.

When the first capsule was almost empty, he traded it for the pink one. Again, using the spoon, he delivered the creamy substance into Zim's mouth. This medicine looked just like yogurt, and smelled like chalk candy.

Zim made a face after taking one spoonful: the expression was a rare one because the Irken mostly expressed himself through the use of his right antenna.

"Doesn't taste as nice, huh?" Dib asked, feeling greatly saddened that Zim had been reduced to such a state.

"Too... too gooey..." Zim spat, coughing.

"You gotta have a little more, okay? This is really good for your spooch."

 _The more I get him to take, the better, right?_

Zim started to pull away, even if there was nowhere for him to go. Dib really didn't wish to coerce him to take anything, but he was afraid that even one missed dose would adversely affect his little alien. Luckily this was not hard. Zim was weak, and hadn't the energy to resist or fight back. And when he wouldn't open his mouth, all Dib had to do was tip back his front teeth and pop the medicine down his throat. Massaging his throat was hardly necessary either. Zim swallowed instinctively, even with his tongue hanging out.

Dib knew that during Zim's worst illnesses, his tongue always stuck out of his lips like that.

"S-Stop... n-no more... Please m-my Tallest!"

"Shhh, Zim. It's me. It's just a little medicine."

Somehow he managed to use up all of the purple-yogurt-like medicine. The last capsule was the blue one. The poor bastard was probably already full with medicine, and Dib doubted he had room for actual food.

When he unscrewed the egg-shaped lid, he saw that the food was pasty, and herbal-looking. No doubt it was condensed nutrition, vital for sick Irkens.

"Okay, one more Zim. Then you can lie back down and get some rest."

Zim was steadily falling back to sleep. He had said very little, and whatever was left of his personality had seemingly gone. There was no bluster, no pride, and no arrogance. It was even possible he no longer remembered who he was, or even who Dib was. Maybe if Zim were younger he might have been more resilient, and quicker to recover. His PAK at least might have turned this whole thing around.

His words in the video haunted the human:

" _I suppose the reason I wanted to make this stupid recording was because I wanted to say... goodbye."_

 _You're not leaving me that easily, Zim. I'm saving you, whether you like it or not._

The invader's very words entered his head, either from his own imagined thoughts, or from his subconscious.

' _Whatever for, stink beast? I am old. What can you possibly accomplish?'_

 _Maybe that's why humans are stupid, Zim. They don't know when to quit._

' _Your promise does not extend this far.'_

 _I know. And I don't care._

' _I do not yet know if your futility is impressive or just plain... foolish.'_

 _I guess we'll have to see, won't we?_

Reverie breaking apart, he slipped his thumb and index finger under Zim's top line of teeth and lifted. Zim gurgled and whined, one claw raising just enough to swat at thin-air as Dib got him to swallow down a morsel of food. He noticed that his tight breathing was getting more and more strained.

 _I'm not losing you, Zim._

 _If I could just repair your PAK, then everything's going to be like it was._

When he got half way down the blue capsule, he stopped. Zim clearly had had enough, and his breathing hitched and wheezed continuously. He was pretty sure what he had got down him would do the job for now.

He put the capsules to one side and brought Zim to his chest. He untied the dirty, wet cloth around his neck that he had used as a bib, and tossed it to the floor.

"I... I need to w-work..." Zim was muttering absently. "I need to w-work... I must acquire... m-must... get a-authorization code 219."

Dib had heard the like before. He patted Zim gently, cuddling him into his arms. Carefully he then snaked the breathing tube back down and pressed the mask over Zim's open mouth. Instantaneously the Irken's chest opened up a little more: his lungs better succoured. Steadily he closed his eyes.

"Don't worry about anything, Zim." Dib whispered, holding him close. "Your work can wait."

"But... c-code 219! Must... must acquire! Running o-out of t-time..."

"Shhh now."

"Please... p-please give me the c-code...my... my Tallest...! P-Please..."

"Computer," the human looked for the external aid he was now fully relying upon, "can you dispense more pain relief for him? Anything that will help him sleep?"

"Only one more may be utilized. Zim has already exceeded the maximum dosage in a thirty-hour period."

At least the computer was keeping tabs on the dosage, and Dib was glad of it.

A tiny mechanical hand emerged from the nearby medi-unit. In its clamps was another vial. Dib reached out and took it gratefully. Part of him: the scientific part, wondered how such amazing pain relief would affect humans, or if was purely meant for Irken chemistry. Regardless, they reminded him of insulin shots. They were to be injected on or near the site of the pain. This he had learnt from reading it up in the biological repair bay.

Carefully he positioned the head of the vial over Zim's midsection after he had zipped down his thermal pyjamas to access the bruised flesh. He pushed the tip down into Zim's side and the little Irken yelped in pained surprise.

Before Dib had even zipped him back up again, Zim had quietened down, his mind floating back towards soft, flittering dreams. The pain was locked up behind a door in his consciousness again, and code 219 was forgotten.

Dib took a large breath and exhaled loudly.

He leaned against the pillows, and had Zim resting snugly on his chest. He kicked off his boots and decided to sleep. He was exhausted, and hadn't napped in a really long time. This was as safe a place as any. Wherever Gir was, it hardly mattered. They were contained. They were safe. So long as Gir stayed in the base and bothered no one else, Dib could afford to sleep.

He closed his eyes gladly, nonplussed and quietly bemused that he had his mortal enemy sleeping on his chest.

What a pair they were. He shortly fell asleep. And dreamed of days gone by.

xxx

 **~ flashback into the past ~**

xxx

The October evening was a frigid one as a weak, bloated sun swooned down to melt into a golden puddle on the lee of the horizon. Its departure cast a pink glow on the clouds above, but soon the clouds wilted into an ashy grey that reflected the uneasy somnolence in Dib's heart. The sunset was a fleeting representation of his life sometimes as the consequences of a twisting reality darkened his outlook. The bright, sunny stage of childhood was over. He was a lean adult, trapped with responsibility.

Now he stood on the sidewalk, looking down the front yard to the little purple door. No matter how often he came here, no matter how much he had grown, no matter how much he had learnt, Zim exacted the same level of fear over him.

Every step of the way here, he asked himself why he had come.

Right of now, he was missing an interview with Jimmy Carlton: a ghost writer who had booked a place at the Old Lincoln Library for a book signing and an interview session. Jimmy Carlton had written all of Dib's favourite books:

' _Who haunts Daisy Lane?'_

' _The Ghostly photograph of old Bill Lee.'_

' _Twelve Eerie Sightings.'_

But instead of going there and asking some burning questions, AND obtaining an interview, he was here instead, facing the accountability he had wrought.

He was going in angry, and Dib knew that was a mistake. When it came to Irkens, you never went in guns-blazing. It was like trying to face down a machine gun with a pistol half cocked.

Dib took a breath, trying to harden himself at least, but his patience was thin, and that he couldn't help.

Hefting the travel case with him, Dib walked down the little garden, glancing at the gnomes bordering the path. Their little heads turned as they tracked him. It made him shiver with nerves.

Leaning up against the wall of the house by the door was the skateboard. Down the grainy surface were recently etched claw marks that weren't there before. And it had been stationed outside, as if it was too much of an insult to have it anywhere _in_ the house.

Above the door was a recently installed speaker system so that Zim could shout at the charity workers, door knockers and postmen without leaving his couch.

Dib knotted his hand into a fist and tapped on the door with a firm purpose. Perhaps if he oozed confidence, Zim may let up, or he may only clench down harder on his anger.

The door did not open.

One of the gnomes staring at him by the path delivered a pulse of weak plasma from its mouth. It burned the hand holding the travel case.

"Yowch!" He dropped the case, which was not such a good thing to do, and he held his hand to his face, seeing the top layer of skin smoulder.

A highly strung voice that was full of smugness cackled into the speakers above his head. "Is that enough of an incentive, Dib? Or do you want another?"

 _He's trying to get me to leave again. He does this EVERY time._

Dib re-took the travel case into his hand: one eye trained on the blasted gnome. "I have something for you." He said, aiming his voice at the speakers.

"What?" Came a tinny retort.

"I SAID I have something for you!"

As Dib waited, he briefly looked down at his watch. It was quarter past six. The interview would be just under way, and here he was once again in front of his enemy's house.

 _I must love the punishment._ He thought.

"This had better be good." Came the answer as last, and the door clicked, swinging inward automatically.

Inwardly collecting up all his courage, Dib stepped in with the travel case. As soon as he was over the threshold, the door snapped closed with a prompt _bang._

He expected a congress of robots to greet him, or a trap door to plunge him into Zim's darkest dungeon. So Dib was happily relieved when he saw the Irken just sitting on the couch, watching TV beside Gir.

"Hi there Dibbie!" Gir was the first to announce, sweeping his arm through the air at him in an energised wave.

"Ooh what is it THIS time?" Zim lazily looked at him from the couch. His reclined body posture told Dib that the Irken should be relaxed, but a closer look told Dib that he was far from it. From his slanted eyes was an arresting blood-red stare and his top row of teeth were beginning to slide out from under his lip. He was tensing up, readying for a fight.

 _It's always a battle with you, isn't it?_ Dib groaned to himself.

"I think I know what can help you walk again." The human explained, feeling absurdly like a sales representative, especially with the travel case in one hand.

Zim eyed the case, and then down at Dib's muddy shoes. Lastly his piercing gaze rested back on Dib's.

 _It's better if I just show it to him._

Dib laid the case down on the floor and started to unclip the latches. Zim straightened slightly, his eyes creasing into even harder slits as if he feared the human had brought in a weapon to kill him with. But when Dib popped off the lid of the case, he allowed his muscles to relax a kink at a time.

"What are those... UGLY things?" Zim pointed out.

Dib stepped back. Inside the travel case, standing upright, were two perfectly made little blue leg braces.

"Oh har, har! Very funny!" Zim said, his eyes looking around the insides of the case from where he sat to see where the real contraption was hiding.

"It's not a joke." Dib said, trying to keep his voice managed and calm, lest he allow Zim's taunts to get to him. "I was up for two nights, working on this. I'm not much of an inventor anymore, but it was simple enough to make. They may seem heavy, but they're not. Each joint, each spring is powered by hydraulics. You'll barely feel the effort. And you won't fall."

"Ha! Such toys! You think I'm placing my feet in those inferior things?" He said, his right antenna pivoting forwards. "I am perfectly fine on my own! Take your silly little invention-things and play with them yourself!"

"Can... can I have them?" It was Gir. He was always smiling; no matter what mood his reluctant Master/father happened to wake up in. "They're... _shiny_!"

"Humph!" Zim actually slunk off the edge of the couch in all readiness to 'inspect' the braces as if Dib had just rolled in equipment destined to fail. Any opportunity to mock Dib was greatly welcomed.

Clinging to the couch like it was an anchor, Zim coasted along it, but he seemed to get confused a third of the way along. His left antenna was trying to bob up and down for direction, and Zim could see where he needed to go, but when he placed his left forward out towards the case, he paused, griping with dizziness.

Dib lifted the braces out of the case and placed them right in front of the Irken to save him the distance. "I'll show you how to put them on. It's really simple."

Zim tried to sniff them, and then he curtly tapped the metal edge with a claw, only to flinch away.

The braces remained stationary.

"They're not going to eat you, Fudgekins." Dib sighed, rubbing at his eyes that no doubt were blemished in shadow from lack of sleep. "You wear them."

"I KNOW!" Zim spat, phlegm darting from his lips. He was getting frazzled, and indecisive. He hated uncertainty. He liked things fashionably precise, and organised and planned. He did not share Dib's creative, improvised talents, and because of that, he did not like it.

Gir spilled down the couch and joined Dib. He poked and prodded the braces, chuckling. "I want some!" He sung merrily. "Can you make me a pink pair?"

"Uh, yeah, sure." Dib said, hoping Gir would forget about it in the next two minutes.

Still, Zim stalled, looking down at the little leg braces with his big, fuchsia eyes.

Dib tried to keep quiet: for anything he said might only fuel Zim with renewed hate.

Gingerly, as if he was placing his foot into a mantrap, Zim slid his first leg into the right brace. After tipping slightly, he slotted in his other leg. Then he fetched his hands onto his hips. His brief splint of fear had lowered the mask. Now his former facade was back in place. "These things are stupid! How are they going to work?"

"Just give me a sec." He started buckling Zim's legs in; aware at how close he was to the Irken. Zim smelt of coffee and butter cream. "This will help you re-adjust to a new balance." Of course, that was what he was hoping for. The thing was, neither of them knew if it was going to work, or if Zim was going to be disabled for life.

Once the buckles were adjusted and fastened in, Dib got to his feet and took a step back.

The braces had metal circlets that held in the Irken's legs, and the struts at the sides bent and flexed to Zim's knee and ankle joints. They went all the way up to his bony hips.

Zim peered anxiously at what his legs were wrapped in as if he was in a pool of quicksand. Gir was waving an Irken flag like he was in charge of cheering Zim on. "You can do it Master! It's so easy!" Chirped the robot.

Dib winced.

Yeah that was the _wrong_ thing to say.

 _Way to go, Gir._

"Take a step." Dib ventured when Zim just stood there, as if wielded to the things.

A fiery tension was flashing through Zim's eyes. Fear was overcome by anger, and then anger was overcome by fear until both emotions were colliding. This internal war was invisible to his two onlookers, but it consumed Zim until he felt close to exploding.

Seeing the rage developing on the Irken's tightened features and not wishing him to snap, Dib added: "Come on, Fudgekin. Just take a step at a time! Look at me! Don't look at anything else!"

Zim's response was curt. "This is STUPID! I'm not doing it! I'm NOT!"

Groaning, Dib came round from behind the Irken and gave him a little push. It was not something he had hoped to do. Trapped in the braces, Zim couldn't exactly turn round and slash at his torso. From the push, on reflex, Zim jerked a step forward to keep from landing on his face. But the braces held him up, locking his knees.

And he did not fall.

Zim held out his arms as if he was on a tightrope.

Then he took another baby step, and another. He was going in one direction, and each new step bolstered his waning confidence. It emboldened him so much that he was maliciously grinning.

"See! I can do it!" He boasted, as if he had never doubted. Dib just rolled his eyes. "I don't need these damn things."

He unlatched the buckles before the human's very eyes. Then he was free of them, tiptoeing out of the braces and looking smug as if he had just conquered half a dozen planets. "I am too amazin..." The floor reached up to grab him, and he hit the carpet with a thud. He blinked, utterly confused as he stared at the ground with incomprehension. Then he started to thump his fists on the floor. "Curse it! Curse it all!"

"Zim! Get back in the braces! You gotta try harder! They aren't going to cure you in three seconds flat! You of all people should know that something cannot come from nothing! Try again! Please try again!"

Zim delivered a dark, sombre growl as he glanced sourly at the human. "You think I'm going to lower myself by using your inferior equipment? I HATE you! I HATE what you've done to me! If you come anywhere near me, I am going to strangle you! And I won't let go until your eyes pop out!"

Dib sunk back, disturbed not only at Zim's expressive threats, but at the glaring hot hatred in his eyes.

The young investigator was tempted to just turn round and leave. And that would be it: the promise would break as cleanly as brittle glass, and Zim may just unbox his latest doomsday device and crack the Earth wide open, just to sate his own self-pity and rage. Maybe Zim wanted to just hate, because it was ALL he had, and the Irken couldn't _stand_ the fact that Dib had moved on – that Dib had grown up, physically _and_ emotionally.

This got Dib mad. He had more or less prepared for a fight anyway. "Oh yeah, fall back on threats! Fall back on your own misery! Because that's all you're good for! I had to miss meeting Jimmy Carlton tonight! Instead I focused on building those stupid braces that I spent hours working on! So yeah, mope around all day and see where that gets you!"

He spun round and started to walk over to the door. It was a big mistake and he knew it: hated himself for it. But being in the same room with Zim was poisoning him. Poisoning them both.

Dib rested his hand on the doorknob when he heard Zim speak. He was prepared to hear more words of intimidation. More Irken aggression.

What he got was something else.

"What's the use? What kind of an Invader am I if I can't even walk? I may as well fly myself to the Fall and be DONE with it!"

Dib turned round, his hand leaving the door handle. Zim was hunched up on the floor, his arms hugging his chest. He did not know at the time what this 'Fall' was, but right now he was too surprised at Zim's change of tone.

Gir had dropped the flag and was approaching Zim with sad eyes. But when he tried to hug the Irken, Zim merely flicked up an arm and pushed him away.

Zim had been building up to this crescendo all along. There had been a flash of it in Dib's new house when he had taken him there on the skateboard.

"Zim. You _can_ overcome this." _You'll never forgive me, I know_. "It's just a little setback. You can't torment yourself like this." _I'm guilty too._ "You need to get your right antenna to work harder, and get used to a new balance! It's just like re-training a lazy eye! You've got to re-program your body! Then you'll be walking and running again in no time! Sitting around, sulking about it isn't going to help!" _I'm sorry._ "Put your anger to better use. Believe in yourself!" _Because I can't do it for you._

Zim looked at him for a moment before his hooded eyes turned dejectedly to the braces. His chest expanded, and then he sighed.

* * *

 **Dib07:** And there you are! I hope that was worth the wait! :) The next chapter is going to be fun too! I can't say much about it, but eh, Zim is back. Officially! Though if anyone wants to go near him, you're going to need a shield! See ya next week!


	23. Enemies Once, Enemies Twice?

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi all. This: THIS chapter I have been excited about getting out for a verrrrry long time. It's amazing that we've finally got to this point in the story, and that we're more than half way through this novel already. It's all thanks to YOU: the reader, the reviewer and the dreamer. I'm so happy we have got this far. And yes, Zim is BACK ladies and gentlemen. THANK GOD! Writing this story, was, for me, getting to this point. And the ending. Obviously lolololol.

And here we are! Enjoy! ^^

As a sad side note: **Saving Zim** may not update next week. I know, I know... IT SUCKS! I have a lot of appointments booked, and my family is over for the summer holidays. BUT! BUT I shall try very hard to update **'The Discount Smeet'** and MAYBE **'Debacle.'** If I can find time. Until then, I shall take a bow, and leave you with this update.

As a better note, this chapter reveals A LOT about what the future holds. If you're not sure, don't worry. ^^

* * *

 **GeekySkeleton**

It was quite another emotional one, huh? I don't know how I ended up doing so many... lol. Zim definitely has the power to keep us riveted, no matter the situation he is in, and this includes the TV show in a massive way. I'm always cheering him on in the sidelines. Sorry Dib! XD Thanks! I had to keep stopping and starting on the later half of that chapter. Heh, glad you laughed at that bit when his girly medicine was mentioned! It took the edge off the sadness! Yeah, oh Zim: you and pink! Well, this is a fun chapter. ;) Well, it was to write! ;)

 **Guest** (chapter 12)

LOL *chokes on tea*

 **Guest** (chapter 14)

Holy moly I wasn't the only one who wanted to do that. KUDOS! Someone turn that boy back round! LUCKILY... he did!

 **moops**

OOoohhh... wonder what you'll THINK of this one! XD This one might not be so sweet! ;)

 **Guest** (chapter 22)

Awww thank you! It's praise and compliments such as yours that keeps these updates happily coming. It feels good to share this story out to the world, whereas before I was happy to hide it. I am very pleased you are enjoying it, and looking forward to the update! ^^ Zim and Dib are such an interesting pair, as friends, and as enemies. They better themselves that way. As for your last request... I've never heard that before, just to not kill Zim. Well, I can say nothing, dear Guest, nothing at all! ;) Let's just hope it doesn't come to that! ;)

* * *

 **CHAPTER 23 (27): Enemies Once, Enemies Twice?**

He was a little bit too big for Irken chairs, he found. The command chair was oval shaped, and hovered, not using legs to support itself. However, when Dib tried to sit down into it, his butt could not even bypass the two, sleek metal arm rests. With a sigh he just pushed the chair to one side and so stood at the access terminal: or in layman's terms, the keyboard.

He had been trawling through Zim's programs for about three hours after having a long, fulfilling nap. He was on level 6, in the mainframe room, accessing the mainframe computer: the source of all Zim's data. This was where the main computer was housed; it's true point of origin.

At first Dib wasn't going to access the mainframe. He was just exploring, and came upon level 6. He had merely turned to the giant screen, and asked if he had access.

He did.

Dib's privileges seemed to have extended to this accidently. Either Zim had somehow perceived all this in some rare miracle of wisdom, or this was gross negligence on his part. But Dib was not using the computer for personal gain.

After getting the computer to politely switch the language to English, he got to work trying to use the access terminal. It took some getting used to, and he was thankful of his adaptive skills and intellect or this might not have worked at all.

He was researching an Irken PAK's schematics, for the device itself was certainly not doing its job and Zim hadn't had a chance to tell him, or downright wouldn't, thanks to his bitter stubbornness.

So Dib had no choice but to investigate on his own. However the information was complex, and steeped in alien knowledge he found impossible to grasp and absorb at once. But as far as he could gather, Zim's PAK was failing.

And once he started digging around, he found the true cause, and did not like what he had discovered.

At first, what _appeared_ wrong with the PAK was just general wear and tear, and there seemed to be no two-ways about it.

Some parts were in critical need of repair and Dib had them virtually analyzed, and highlighted. As it was, he had the PAK up on the mainframe screen in blue-print mode, lending him all the diagrams and 3D models he needed. He could zoom in and out of any tube or circuit he liked in spectacular detail.

The computer was helpful in this regard: giving him all he needed, if the middle-aged human could understand any of it. Each analysis of the PAK was recent, the last report having been only less than a week ago which meant that Zim was having his PAK scanned regularly in order to have such up-to-date information. This ALSO meant that Zim was and had been well aware of his PAK deteriorating.

On the screen, certain drives and modules of the PAK model were highlighted in red. It was the middle section that was the most worn and two components were shorting out, causing havoc on Zim's body.

However, he was beginning to learn from the readouts and schematics how the PAK worked, and how Zim was affected.

The PAK was a self-sufficient piece of advanced equipment. It did not need any batteries, solar charging or fuel. How it worked was blood. Or blood energy. It was a highly sophisticated kinetic system. With each push of blood that went round Zim's system, it powered the PAK's mechanical regularity, so in a way the power source was recyclable and infinite. So long as Zim's heart kept beating. But that's where the problems started.

You started having old, rusty components, and sooner or later they were going to stall, lock up and fail. This in turn upset the Irken's organs, and his heart: straining it. With less power and less regular functionality from the PAK, the heart started to fail, and this made the PAK fail even more so until it became a deepening spiral that Zim was unable to get out of.

It was a nasty knock-on effect.

The PAK was killing him. Day by day.

What was it that Zim had said in his drug-fuelled haze?

" _It's all to do with the blood... r-round and round and r-round..."_

" _Yes, Zim. Round and round."_

Dib knew from the beginning of this debacle that he could not make a replacement by any means. He could not re-create Irken technology and he figured Zim couldn't either, or he would have surpassed this problem ages ago.

 _Maybe this is just what happens to old Irkens? Maybe their PAKS don't get replaced or repaired?_

He had no idea on Irken ethics or their principles.

But Dib did have an idea.

He could send his dad the schematics and have him make a bypass for the PAK – just to give Zim a little more time. But it wouldn't be a permanent fix. And if his calculations were anywhere near accurate, Dib hoped that the planned bypass would alleviate the damaged areas and so keep the PAK functioning, and as such, relieve the massive strain on the invader's body.

And if he was learning anything, apparently the PAK contained Zim's core memory, and other traits. So transferring all these to a new machine was simply unachievable.

As good as this bypass sounded, it opened up new dilemmas that would have otherwise remained hidden.

 _If I could do this... if my dad could do this... is it right?_

 _It would only give Zim more time, and his PAK will still deteriorate. He may have an extra six months of life. Maybe even a year at the most. But it might prolong his suffering. Not end it._

Dib believed that the Zim he used to know, the Zim hiding deep inside, would want to go on fighting, but he didn't know that Zim anymore.

Often, as he was going through the files and programs, trying to assimilate as much as he could, he kept checking behind him, sure that Gir would be there; silently watching him with an idiotic grin. The relief he felt each time he looked to prove that no one was there was indescribable. But he could not help but keep looking, even when he was certain he was all on his own. For Gir was free to move about and free to go from level to level.

Was that little robot still insane, with those glowing red eyes?

Dib did not relish the idea of going back up top to find out.

But why was Gir off the rails? Dib always knew the robot was mad, but never maliciously mad. And Gir had attacked Zim once upon a time. He had pulled out the proof during the surgery. And Zim was way too out of it to testify said event.

As Dib printed off the PAK's schematics, caught in the current problem of Zim's dwindling life span, he thought about how he was going to sell this story to his father. He did not think he needed to altogether lie about it, and just admit that his 'foreign friend' had this old life support system on his back and that certain mechanical parts were no longer in production and a bypass was in order. Such medical devices weren't that far-fetched these days. Some people depended on batteries and machines to keep them alive. And if his calculations were anywhere near accurate, Dib hoped that the planned bypass would alleviate the damaged areas and so keep the PAK functioning.

Sadly however, Zim's problems were not unique. It was purely old age.

He would die.

And Dib had to come to terms with that.

 **x x x**

For once Zim's turbulent dreams weren't entangled with pain. In fact, his sleep was pleasantly comfortable and every time he stirred towards consciousness, he welcomed the fact that he could breathe. It was a faint surprise to him.

When he did wake, he was slow coming round. He tried to rearrange his muddled thoughts, and discover where he was and what he had missed. It was so easy to slump back into his dreams of comfort, warmth. And he wanted to do so, oh so badly did he want to relinquish all duties and just selfishly sleep.

Eventually he woke long enough to open his eyes. After a few seconds, of which time he tried to get to grips with his situation, he soon realized that he was in his resting chamber, which in itself was no great shock. What was shocking was the oxygen plate over his mouth and nasal passages. It came to him in segments that he was on oxygen, and that he himself did not remember installing it.

He raised a clawed-hand and lifted it from his face, snapping the elastic band behind his head. Then he dumped it by his side, his head still wheeling with dizzy exhaustion.

While Zim was still surfacing, and now free of the mask, he could smell the Dib human straight away. His scent was palpable, and for a time Zim wondered why the scent was so strong. As he looked, he noticed the catheter in his hand, and the tangled line of IV tubing running from it. Suspicions surmounted, and with these grave suspicions came great paralyzing fear. Why was he on oxygen? Why the IV tube? Black nightmares fused before him, and, gathering strength in his fear, he managed to shrug off the sleep and painfully sit up, looking frantically for the scientists he was now imagining.

They were hiding! Had to be hiding!

Sitting up brought more staggering dizziness and each time he swallowed, he felt how painfully dry his throat was.

He studied his body for a moment, trying to surmise the memory of putting on his night-time thermals. But there was no recollection. What he did remember was fragmented. He remembered the acidic rain running down his exposed skin; he remembered being chased through the dark, sombre streets, and amongst all of this confusion he recalled taking a ride in Dib's car, and being carried like a broken smeet. But the memory was suffused in deep pain. Much of what came after was just a blank. He had memories, and dreams of memories, none of which formed any coherence. He remembered a lot of pain, and a lot of the Dib amongst that pain.

How had he got home, if this was his home? Had he been finally captured?

The pain was great, and he wanted a shot of rinuah: an Irken drug similar to the properties of cocaine.

Zim kicked the blankets off his body in frantic panic, and shored himself up along the edge of his incubation pod. He had been drugged! He must have been! Why else did he feel so weak? So disorientated? So... so tired?

He lifted out a leg, freeing it from the blankets as he dipped it downwards to touch the floor. His other leg shortly followed, and straightening out his arms, he managed to lift himself off the bed to stand. Zim let go of the incubation pod entirely and stood successfully for a moment before his legs buckled, sending him crumbling to the ground. He let out a squeal of surprise.

Once he got a little of his breath back, he snorted out: "Why... w-why does Zim hurt so much?"

The room gently spun around him. The little Irken felt surreal, as if he was floating. But his body was as heavy as concrete. His left arm, still connected to the drip, tugged painfully against the catheter.

"The... The D-Dib! He's... h-he's done this! S-Somehow!"

He wasn't sure why, but did it matter? Dib had been planning this from the start! His excuses, his very promise, were just an elaborate ruse to trick the Elite once and for all!

"T-That... that weasel!"

He had been drugged!

Betrayed!

"I... I an a-an AM! An Irken Invader! I cannot let this... infiltrating pig do t-this!"

But what was wrong? Why was he hurting?

Still leaning uncomfortably against his pod, on the floor, he summarised that the pain was mostly surfacing from his left side. Plucking his claws together, he pressed on the zipper of his thermals and started carefully pulling it down. What he saw made him squeal again in confusion. All down his left side, from the bottom of his ribs to his pelvis, was a long, fleshy crevice where he had clearly been opened up. There were no stitches; in fact the whole puffy area looked like the opening had just been glued shut.

 _The Dib! He's... he's been removing my... my organs!_

He should have known all along! Should never have submitted once for a millisecond!

The little invader felt that it would be better to die than to submit to the indignity of the Dib.

Shock flooded into him until he was practically staring, dumbfounded at the surgical tear, his jaw hanging open. The terror of this betrayal was one thing, but the failure to his Tallest and to the mission was quite another. He had allowed an enemy native to dupe him, and harvest his organs. Dib must have planned it from the beginning, the wire trap being just a small stepping stone to the human's ultimate goal.

 _The stink beast has gone back on his promise! The Dib! I knew... I knew he'd do a stupid thing like this!_

He croaked out hoarsely, his words dripping with venom: "I'll... I'll g-get him for this!"

Zim zipped his thermals back up and tried to find his feet. Every time he managed to lock up a knee and stand, one or both of his arthritic legs would betray him and he'd slide uselessly to the floor again. Each failed attempt caused him to fall, and each fall worsened the pain. It was like he was trying to fetch a grip on a floor made entirely of ice.

Crawling across the floor like a lowly worm which he despised, with the drip trailing behind, he made it to the far wall where he kept his equipment and extra blankets. He pulled out each drawer that he could reach and emptied out the contents on the floor, looking for an emergency Irken plasma gun.

 _It's here somewhere! I just know it!_

"C-Computer!" He croaked, his words barely audible as he continued searching through the junk, "Is there a f-filthy human in the v-vicinity?"

"Affirmative, Master." The computer's response was almost too fast for Zim to cope with.

"Is... is the human's n-name: Dib, by any c-chance?"

"That is correct."

"And h-his current location?"

"Down in the mainframe room."

Zim growled aggressively, his working antenna pointing erect in anger. But his hatred made his left side throb. He clapped a claw over it, willing the pain to shut up. "He's... he's s-sabotaging my mission! I... I have to stop him!"

He emptied the last drawer he could reach. What finally tipped out was the purple plasma weapon embossed in sparkling blue. It was called the Absolute. Because it always, absolutely, killed the enemy.

The very notion of killing Dib gave Zim an internal conflict he had never known. First he had boarded up his robot child, and now he was willing to end the life of his human compatriot.

"He's... he's done this to me... I... I trusted him! An Invader should never trust anyone!"

With one convulsive jerk, he ripped the drip tubing free from his catheter. Green blood splattered across the floor.

Zim tried to rise again, knowing that he needed to get vertical if he planned on taking the offensive.

His PAK spider legs shot out of their ports and tipped him up the right way. Soon he was freely hanging in the air, solely supported by the constructs of his PAK. Despite this, new pain arched like electricity across his heart, taking him by surprise. He almost dropped the Absolute as he curled up in agony. The metal legs kept him in check, and he didn't fall.

One eye twitching, the other closed shut in a wince, he was scuttled forwards by the prosthetics towards the resting chamber's exit. "Computer!" His screeching yell was completely hoarse. "Activate security! Apprehend that smelly fucking pig!"

He opened up the Absolute's loading chamber in his shaky claws, checking the plasma cartridges inside. All five of them were glowing blue. They were ready to fire.

 **x x x**

Dib watched the translucent reams of the schematics being 'printed' off. He picked one up that had been freshly made and he marvelled at the material. The sheet was in A4 size but it was more of a flimsy, cool plastic than paper. It was tough, durable, and wouldn't get spoiled if it got wet. As much as he disliked Zim sometimes, he was envious of the technology at his disposal. It was super light too, and practically floated above his hand whenever he bounced it upwards. More reams of this special paper were being ejected from the machine's right side port; all covered in sophisticated PAK specifications. He had an idea already where the bypass should go, and what material the bypass should be made out of, so if he had the idea, he hoped his father would do too.

While these sheets were being developed, suddenly the ambience of the chamber changed and Dib spun round, expecting that Gir had just intruded. The ochre lights changed to a hardened, menacing red that blinked on and off. A low siren sounded, and all the doors opposite him began to close. Because this had never happened before, he just stood there, transfixed. He could have run for a door before it closed, but that meant leaving the schematics behind and he couldn't do that.

He looked up at the mainframe computer, believing that he himself had triggered something.

"Computer?" He called in perplexity. "What's going on?"

"Security breach. You have been held accountable, human Dib Membrane, and all privileges have been revoked. You are to be detained immediately."

Dib looked around him, as if ready to confront a physical opponent. Even the mainframe screen above him blared out red letters, but this time they were in Irken. Luckily the schematics were still being made, and Dib stood by them protectively. All the doors, even the one leading to the conduit, had fully closed, giving him no escape.

"Wait!" He barked, confused and angry, "Tell me what I did wrong?"

"Master Zim has deemed you as a high-level security threat. You are to be eliminated."

Dib felt the life drain from him. Out of all the possible scenarios, he could never have seen this one coming.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Irkens... Lol. Like I said, _Saving Zim_ may not update next week, but it should the week after. Summer holidays, man! So busy!


	24. Overcoming the Absolute

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I am really sorry for such a late, LATE update. I know it gets bad when readers are asking for updates, on here, and on tumblr, lol! I love you guys! I guess I've started some new addiction or something, lol! I regret nothing! XD

PLUS I dedicate this chapter to **BirdNerd03** because you, my dear reader, have inspired me and made me so happy with your fanart! I STILL can't get over it! It's the sweetest thing, and it makes me so happy! I hope you received my email! I sent it not long after you sent me the surprise! If not I can easily PM it to you, as I saved the message on Word just in case! :) Anyway, have a fab day! I cannot wait to hear back from you! I just LOVE what you did for me! It's brightened my day!

* * *

 **RhiannonsaurusRex** chapter 22

I know right! Dib was so sweetly dedicated, even though there wasn't much stopping him from leaving, except Gir of course! But even then, he had the chance to escape when he was outside the house, and he went right back in, for Zim. I know a lot of it is guilt, keeping Dib staying, but since he's learnt that Zim has forgiven him, he shouldn't have to feel that way anymore. Zim is such a grouchy old guy, and would never ask for help, even when he sorely needed it, so it's just as well they struck up the uneasy truce when they did, because they really do need each other, and even with Dib now having Clara, he still needs his oldest friend. Yes, Zim was in a sorry state, having left the infection untreated for so darn long, and it was a bit of a tear-jerker, not gonna lie. It's troubling to think that Zim would rather get to this state without asking for help. And it says a lot about his military upbringing, which must have been hell unto itself. I really enjoyed writing the 'leg braces' part! It was so terribly hard to write, as I wanted to get Zim's character as close to perfection as I could, but it was all worth it in the end. I like what I wrote, and I don't normally like what I write! ;) And omg yes, YES he does so much remind me of a half feral cat! Like in 'If Only I Could' he has that wild perplexity about him: that untamed unpredictability. Which, sadly, estranges Zim from fully trusting anyone, as a feral cat would feel. So no wonder the little Irken gets so stressed! Gosh, I see you've been having the summer holiday busyness too! Same as me! I love spending time with my family, but ah - it does leave me feeling really tired and overwhelmed by it all! I love that you managed to find time to review, it's so sweet and brilliant of you! I love it X 1,000,000!

 **RhiannonsaurusRex** chapter 23

Zim truly is his own worst enemy, isn't he? He has been under so much emotional and physical strain, and we all know how paranoid and insecure he is (which makes him so lovable but it can also end up killing him). So yes he is under a lot of strain, especially when he has so many problems to deal with. And, beneath it all, he always has this concrete suspicion of humans, due to his military training, and belief that once someone is an enemy of an inferior species, they are always out to get you. Omg you brave thing, you had a C-section? I am lucky to not have any surgery done on me yet. I've had deep-root canal treatment and that, luckily, is all I will need, lol. But I can only imagine how stressful and frightening that must have been for you. My mother has had surgery, and I know from her own personal experience that it wasn't nice at all, being in a strange place, trapped, with strangers. It doesn't help that no personal recovery rooms are ever available. And yes, pain can completely change us. I've had terrible pain in the past, and I know how quickly it can haunt/effect someone. And yeah... Dib kinda made things worse by snooping into files and places he shouldn't... but his heart is in the right place. It's just hard if not impossible for Zim to see and accept that. Lol, yes, that pink vial of Dib's is still a mystery! And as of yet, none of them have confronted each other about it due to the ramifications of Gir. And Zim's stupor. I think a lot of readers are trying to guess what it does, which makes it all the more fun! ;) And Zim does need to keep his distance from Gir, but will he? He loves taking action, and placing himself in the middle of it. He is a bit of a control freak, and does not like being controlled, the sweet goofball that he is! :) Ah yes, the weather over here has been very cloudy, but quite warm! Which isn't bad! After the heatwave we had in May/June, I don't think I am prepared for a real summer! Have a lovely time, try not to rush around too much after everyone else and I cannot wait for your thoughts, always! You take care!

 **moops**

Lol. I second that opinion!

 **Guest**

Hahah! Thanks! I try! Some of the cliffhangers coming up are even better, trust me! ;)

 **Guest**

Awww, Imma so sorry! I hope this little update helps! I had no idea the summer holiday period would overwhelm me so. I really didn't. Still, at least I wrangled in this update! Phew!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 24 (28): Overcoming the Absolute**

"Wait! Tell me what I did wrong?"

"Master Zim has deemed you as a high-level security threat. You are to be eliminated."

Dib felt the walls closing in. He had been slowly and uncomfortably starting to get used to Zim's intricate base and it had now just turned against him. A part of him; a small, logical part, had always feared this outcome. But he had never listened to it. Now he wished he had paid better attention.

Dib knew he had to get out of this, somehow.

"No!" Dib shot back, refusing to be a part of these ramifications. "Belay that order! There has to be some mistake! Zim isn't awake yet, is he? If he is you've GOT to tell him everything! Everything I've done for him! Everything I still have yet to do!"

The computer did not answer. It no longer needed to. Instead, a different reciprocation was in order. Snaking tubes as strong as wire shot down from the ceiling and started angling for his appendages. Dib went to run, realizing he had nowhere to run to.

"Urm, coffee?" He stated lamely, out of all other options. But the code meant nothing now, and he knew it.

Dib dove for a sealed door; and the tubes took chase like feral creatures.

He knew he could not leave the schematics behind.

Divided, without a solution, he hesitated, and so the tubes caught his leg and arm. They began binding him like the coils of a snake. The vial jangled against his chest, and he hoped to god that in the commotion it would not break.

"No! Let me go!" He struggled. No longer a small boy, he was able to wrestle one off him, but another took its place. He hammered on one with a fist, but because it wasn't sentient, it did not register the damage, and squeezed all the tighter. He did not know what he had done wrong, and therefore did not know how to solve it.

Near him, on a little neat pile on a unit, the last of the schematics ejected from the port.

They were the solution: to have Zim with him for as long as possible. He would not leave without them.

More tubes whipped out from the walls and secured his ankles. They were as effective as manacles. And they were no longer holding back as they had done previously, treating him with respect and honour. Now they were maliciously clutching him, as a cold dungeon held its prisoner.

Dib pushed and pulled, knowing he was fighting a losing battle but fighting anyway. Fighting was all he knew.

Opposite him, the shutter door to the conduit began to open. The red blinking lights continued to flash in the room, and the siren was still wailing. Dib stopped struggling, looking up in hopefulness at the emerging doorway.

Relief flashed through him like cool water. A spider strut materialized out from the darkness of the doorway.

"Zim!" He called before the door was even halfway open. "Zim, it's me! What's going on? Why have you activated a lockdown? How... how can you even be out of bed?" He didn't care if he spewed nothing but overlapping questions. His confusion warranted answers, and the fact that he was being treated as an interloper infuriated him. "Zim!" He yelled again, angrier this time when his outburst gave him nothing in return.

Was it because Git had been released? He had nothing to do with it, but what if Zim _thought_ that the human had let Gir out? Zim always overacted, sometimes panicking at the littlest of things.

The door opened all the way, and Zim crept out into the red flashing room. He looked rather intimidating, hovering above ground level on his mechanical spider legs. Dib had not seen him use those in a long, long time. If anything, he faintly resembled a monster and even Dib felt like he himself was in the last chapter of a horror movie, and that he was a fly before the spider.

"Zim?" He called again, fear helplessly toning his voice. Once he had got over the whole 'spider leg thing' he saw in dawning terror that his alien was holding something that looked very much like a lethal weapon in his right hand. It was glowing. "Zim, you shouldn't be using your PAK! You'll only make yourself worse!"

Zim's eyes seemed to burn a hotter red in the flashing room and his pallid green skin looked almost grey. He did not raise the weapon, for his words were sharp enough to do damage. "You... you foul creature! You... you d-disgusting pile of excrement!"

Dib blinked. "Zim, what the fuck is going on? Recall your orders! Tell these things to let me go!"

Zim shook his head. As he did so, he calmly raised the weapon upwards menacingly. Dib watched it with alarm. A droplet of sweat trickled down his forehead. He suddenly felt like shitting himself.

"Let you go? LET you GO?" And he began to laugh, but the laughter was cut off quickly by a heavy bout of violent coughing. Even the spider legs staggered as if the mental command of holding them up wavered just a little too much. Once the coughing episode was over, Zim pressed one hand to his chest, and aimed the Absolute with the other at Dib's head. "I can't let you go, little, stupid human. You turned back on our promise. You think I'd just LET you walk out of h-here? I, ZIM! Am in control! And you will grovel before me before I blast you into dust!"

Dib vainly struggled against the tube-restraints. They did not let up an inch.

Bravely he looked up at Zim who was now the taller, and he looked into the gaping hole of the weapon. "Wait! There's been some kind of misunderstanding! I saved you! Just ask the computer!"

"Pah! More lies! You... you can't talk your way out of this one, pig filth. Not anymore. I'm done with you, you charlatan."

Dib felt the sweat slide down his brow. Inside, he was shaking. Zim was likened to a trip-wire. Say the wrong thing, and you'd trigger your own death. He wasn't even sure what he was being accused of, and feared that Zim did not have the patience to explain. He usually didn't. So he appealed to what Zim was most sensitive about. It was a gamble, and he was taking it. "I know about Gir! I know about your PAK! I've _never_ turned my back on you and I never will! Now revoke your order and for the love of god drop that fucking gun!"

This seemed to do nothing, least of all pacify the alien. He took aim, squeezing one eye shut as he looked down the scope of his weapon.

Dib realized that he was getting no second chances. That Zim might have just woken up with no memory, only to panic. This was not that unusual, for Zim got stressed out way too easily.

It was crazy to think that only hours ago major surgery had been performed, and Zim had been lying on a table, screaming weakly as Clara fought to remove a robot's miniature thumb. Now he was standing on his PAK prosthetics like a lunatic, a plasma gun in his claws. His spidery shadow was etched over Dib like a cloak of doom.

"I've... I've seen the disk! The visual recording!" The investigator confessed in blind desperation. "Please believe me! There was a metal object buried in your spooch-thingy! Clara... I mean... I removed it! I had to fucking resuscitate you, you moron! And this is the thanks I get? I worked hard, you know!"

He wasn't sure how much of this was getting through to Zim. It didn't help that the Irken had trouble hearing everything that was said. Also, his arrogance only liked to hear and process what he wanted to hear, discarding all the rest. Dib would have been on his knees at this point if the tubes were not holding him. But he wouldn't have been grovelling to Zim's might and power. He would have been pleading to the Irken inside, looking for the humanity he recognised in the alien, and saw on rare occasions.

Zim still held the weapon, his aim true, with one claw clutching hard at his chest.

"You... y-you took something out of me!" Something had worked. Something had gone through his mental defences.

"A foreign object, yes! To save you! Check the records, the video footage! Your computer records everything! Just _look_ at them!"

" _Please_ don't lie to me, Dib." Now his gun-arm was shaking, his aim askew. His arrogance was gone; peeling back to reveal a frightened alien who did not wish to kill his human but had to do so. Everything had been set on the promise; the trust between them, and Zim saw the crack opening, and did not want to fall through. His insecurity seemed to have doubled since to his ill health.

"Your mission hasn't been sabotaged." Dib continued in a gentler tone. "Nothing's been compromised. I am just trying to help you. There's something wrong with Gir, and there's something wrong with your PAK. But I can help both of you. I can give you solutions." _Careful, Dib._ He told himself. _Say the wrong thing and he'll blow your head off._ "If you kill me, you'll kill yourself."

Zim laughed again, but oh so cold and hard did it sound. It was like an entirely different Zim had taken the place of the older, softer one. "You think I need you? YOU? Of all lowly beasts this Earth has to offer? You know too much. You've been in my files, haven't you?"

"Only to find a way of helping you!"

Well, you know what Dib, I can manage just fine. I have been so far, and you are not going to make a damn difference!"

"Yes, you can manage. But I _want_ to help." Dib pressed, holding Zim's eyes with his own. He tried to ignore the weapon, which was next to impossible to do. He had almost forgotten how much Zim had frightened him when he was a child. That scar on his arm was a reminder of how far Zim could go, unintentionally sometimes. He did not want another episode quite like that one, only for Zim to realize his fatal mistake once Dib was all blood and guts on the floor. "I promised you I wouldn't turn my back. I promised! And you swore an oath too on that day! Didn't you?"

Zim snarled, raising his upper lip. His right antenna was fully erect. His crippled was angled askew from his head like a twisted string of wire.

"Didn't you?" Dib snapped, losing his patience.

"You said it didn't have to last forever!"

"Then fucking shoot me!" He shouted, "I'm sick and tired of waiting! You don't want to hear reason? Then fine! Doom yourself! Doom Gir! And doom me for all I care! But I'm not taking it back! I stand by my oath! You are betraying _me_!"

This suddenly perplexed Zim. Everything he believed in now had holes in it. Part of his brain reeled, believing it to be yet another carefully crafted trick. A deeper part of him registered the plausibility of the human's little speech, and so he hung, suspended on his spider legs, truly dismayed.

"C-computer," he coughed, "has this pig smelly seen the disk?"

"Yes, Master."

"A-And... and can you verify what he is s-saying?"

"I can."

"And what of Gir?"

"Gir has breached all security, and the containment room. He is currently loose in the upper tier of the base."

For a moment he was still on edge, part of him wishing to just cut the human down and be done with it. Far less complications that way, and no more loose ends. It was in his training to end all opposition and eliminate even the smallest of threats: threats that could later grow and become a real problem. After all, Dib was nothing but a lowly, inferior human. He meant nothing. And yet something. He had bested Zim numerous times, becoming more than just an archrival. His tactics were almost Irken in nature, and though Zim hated this human stubbornness, he approved of Dib as well. And Dib had this awful, disgusting kindness. 'Kindness' was a terrible weakness. Yet, throughout their years of enduring the other, and as they got older, he slowly came to terms with it, and accepted Dib's nature, as the human accepted his.

His memories folded back to the dark event of the wire. Kindness and mercy had saved him that day, though he didn't want to acknowledge that fact.

And so, ultimately, the oath held him.

For had it not been Dib who had helped him to walk upright again? And driven the pain of disability from his mind?

One twitchy claw rested on his side, the side that had not long ago been opened, then promptly glued shut. He had bled out a lot. And Zim could feel no hard bump there, no massive contortion of pain. The badness in there had been reduced – it must have – for he felt more comfortable inside.

Dib watched as the tubes held him down, eyes on Zim as the alien touched and prodded his bad side experimentally.

Finally Zim let the Absolute fall to his side and all of his resolve melted out of him. "Computer. R-Release him."

The computer took a moment to verify his authority, as if it wasn't sure, or didn't want to obey. Then when nothing else was added, the computer relented, and the tubes fell away from Dib, curling back into their appropriate ports.

Dib tested his ankles, wrists and arms and found that he was just bruised, and that nothing was broken. The flashing lights returned back to their normal ochre brightness and the siren stopped mid-wail. The mainframe behind the human returned back to the schematics as if it had never been interrupted at all. Even the doors all opened, allowing free entry once more. Dib allowed himself to breathe deep, glad the storm was over.

Zim cast his Absolute to the floor, as if glad to be rid of its purpose. It landed heavily on the cold, slick tiles and lay there, glowing faintly like the vial around Dib's neck.

"Zim, you idiot!" Dib yelled up at him. "You could have killed me! Do you realize how hard I worked, keeping your stupid body alive? Did that autodoc fry your brain or something?"

Zim tried to lower himself to the floor, but his fraying concentration failed and his PAK legs jerked back in too suddenly, causing him to more or less crash to the ground. He tried to shake away the spreading dizziness as Dib kept on yelling at him.

"Gir has gone berserk!" He continued, "He exploded out of that containment room! And now he's guarding the lounge! We can't go in or out! We need a plan!"

When Zim did not answer, the human approached him cautiously, his eyes skirting to the weapon that lay not more than ten feet away.

"Look, did you wake up, all cranky and upset? Believing I had hurt you?" He said, more quietly.

Zim went to stand, getting one stiff knee under him. To appear weak in front of Dib was just not acceptable. Irkens were strong until the very end. Weakness was for useless, pathetic invalids that were deemed unfit for even the most basic of tasks. He would not be one of them.

Dib went to help him up, but Zim curtly slapped him away with sharp claws, snarling angrily. His working antenna was now flat against his skull. Dib took it as a sign of anxiety and aggression and so gave him a bit of space.

"You were out of it, Zim. And I guess you don't remember anything, do you?" The human begged for some kind of reciprocation. Anything. Even an insult would be good. Zim was the best at handing those out. "Look, let's get you to the autodoc to see how your body's coping, and then you can have something to eat. I'll explain everything, starting from the beginning. I guess... I guess that medicine I gave you really did help."

He noticed that through it all, the Irken was still holding his chest. It concerned him a little, considering that was not the place where he had had the surgery.

"Zim?" He started, raising an eyebrow. "Are you okay?" Now that the immediate threat of having his head blown off was over he saw that the alien had ripped the catheter out of his hand. Dried blood had clotted over the hole. _Well, that's fucking dumb_. He thought to himself.

Zim went to rise, his legs shaking.

 _Can't even stand up on my own! I can't fail!_ The Irken thought with bitter rancour. _Mustn't let him see me fail!_

"Zim!" Dib didn't want to cross into the Irken's personal space, but he hated to watch him struggle. "You've pushed yourself too far! Too fast! You're screwing up your recovery! Your weakened PAK can only deal with so much at a time!"

This knowledge stupefied the Irken at once. How could Dib know so much?

"DON'T touch me, and DON'T come near me! I know PERFECTLY well what I am doing!" He coughed. But for all his struggling he hadn't stood up yet at all. He kept trying, and his legs kept folding back up again. He was locked in some kind of hellish limbo. His legs simply refused to support him.

"Zim! Stop it! You're killing yourself!" Dib had had enough. He crossed the small gap between them and put his arms around the Irken. Zim let out a harrowing squeal of self-hatred and mixed resentment, kicking out weakly. He could not get up, and he did not understand why. His body had become a stranger to him. "I'm going to lift you, and carry you to the autodoc, okay? Don't get so stressed! If you do, I'll have no choice but to sedate you! And I don't want to do that! I need you to contain Gir! He's free! Doing stuff!"

Zim started to scream. "No, no, NO, NO! I don't want your help! I don't want it!" Then he started to lament in hushed, pleading tones: "Please... please go away, Dib! Don't take me to the autodoc! I... I can..." Then he saw the blood on Dib's arm through the bandage, as the human wasn't wearing a coat.

It wasn't exactly hard to miss, when the arm was right in front of Zim's eyes.

"You're... you're hurt stink beast? Why... why didn't you say a-anything?" His sudden concern was daunting.

Dib looked about himself, perplexed, then remembered. His arm was still wrapped in white gauze from Gir's earlier attack and the wound had bled through. He had forgotten all about it.

"Zim, hey, it's okay! It doesn't hurt, honest!"

"Gir... Gir did that, didn't he?" He looked truly sorry, which again caught the human off-guard. Why did Zim care so much after nearly a squeeze away from shooting him dead? Had they stepped over some boundary at some point in their hectic lives? Were they now friends? Or still diplomatic enemies?

Dib shook his head at himself. He had watched the visual recording, and had heard Zim's haunting message as if it was a last will and testament.

Zim considered him as a friend, which meant a lot, considering that the Irken struggled to show it.

"Yeah, but it's fine. I was lucky." The human said. "It's hurting less now. Once someone shoves a gun in your face, it changes a lot of perspectives."

"You could have...d-died..." Suddenly his dull eyes looked wet.

"No, I didn't. I'm not going anywhere, Zim. I promise."

"I... I hate you..." And Zim buried his face in Dib's chest.

 _Don't cry, Zim. Please don't fucking cry._ Dib thought, holding him tightly. "Come on, you insufferable bastard. We'll sort this out. Together. Once this is over, I have someone very special to show you."

"S-Special?"

"Yeah. She already thinks the world of you."

As if on cue, his mobile phone rang in his pocket, causing them both to jerk at the silly ring-ting noises. Dib drew out his phone. It was Clara, trying to get through. He wasn't sure if he should answer her, but Zim was looking at the phone and that cold, stony look was coming over him again.

Humans.

Suspicion.

Hatred.

It accosted Zim in an eternal carousel, as the blood did with his damaged PAK.

" _Don't_ answer that." Zim didn't just say; he growled it. He had no idea it was Clara, and Dib didn't know how Zim would react once he learned of her involvement with his surgery. He would learn of it, eventually of course. But now seemed too soon. They had a very insane robot to sort out.

"Yeah. Sorry." And Dib rejected her call with the press of a button. Then he took a breath, and said to the still-angrily-frowning Irken, "We need to talk."

"About _what?"_ Zim started cruelly, as if there was nothing to discuss, not least between them.

Dib remained patient with him, because he knew too much already. "Everything."

* * *

 **Dib07:** Okay, I am glad I managed to get this update out and about! XD I do feel terrible for not having uploaded it any sooner. So there you go, folks! I hope it was worth the wait!


	25. Human Consequences

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I have to say I absolutely LOVE replying to you guys, whether in messages, emails or reviews. Sadly, as of the last few weeks I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and unwind with you all, but the summer holidays in the UK are now over, my dearest family have gone back to work and now I am back. I am getting to you all as quick as I can! It's gonna take awhile to get down the list, but I will get there! :)

I've mushed these 2 chapters together once again, so don't worry if it looks like I'm skipping chapters, I'm not. I'm trying really hard to make sure all is now included, and that, by joining up shorter chapters, you won't have to wait as long for all 50 in 50 separate instalments. :)

Dear **Rhian** , I hope you have read and are enjoying/enjoyed the last chapter. I understand how much of a pain it is when there is no internet or when you're busy (I know exactly what that's like! Phew boy!) I hope all is well and that you are still devouring this as I hash it out!

P.S **Piratemonkies64,** was it you who said that Gir's wild programing couldn't just be random? That you swore there was a reason? Well, gosh, here's your answer (it's so hard for me to keep secrets!)

Gosh, is that everything? Okay! Let's go!

* * *

 **Guest**

Hi there! Here's another update to hopefully keep you topped up until next week! :)

 **Laurie**

Hhaha! What a lovely review! Thanks, I'm glad I've been able to successfully (thus far) make such an unusual tale that kind of turns things round quite a lot and makes it well... different. I'm very happy you have found this story, and I hope you continue to enjoy it, despite the differences. It is not something we're used to, I agree. And yes, the Tallest are monsters! It's ironic you wrote that, because well, you're gonna get another little glimpse into their motives. It might explain a few things! XD

 **Laurie** (Out of the Game)

Omg you read one of my older classics! I hate and love this story! Hahaha! Yes, it does end on such a tragic, and sudden note. The hardest part was leaving it there, as you might have already guessed. Thank you for liking the way I write Zim and Dib. I try my hardest, and try to remain proud of what I manage to accomplish.

 **Anon**

THANK YOU! You are so sweet! Hopefully this chapter is a little more positive (though I say that timidly), but there's some really AMAZING stuff yet to come!

 **Guest**

Zim's too hardcore. He'll be fine! XD (I hope)

 **Moops**

Lol. I think that is EXACTLY what Dib is thinking, and has been thinking for the last 2 chapters! XD

* * *

 **CHAPTER 25 (29+30): Human Consequences**

Far out in space, where the stars were but a cold consolation to all those lost to the infinity, the Massive marched ever onwards in front of its war fleet. Tallest Red was lounging before a great screen that depicted footage of his drones, either in real-live combat, or in their training as he could toggle between each camera feed. Some of the lower class Irkens were mining a planet for resources to further the war effort while still others were in the process of being tortured for past crimes or minor volitions. Red was drinking down Vortian blood in a tall crystal glass. He had his feet up; tiny feet though he had, and because he hated to touch the 'filthy' ground even whilst resting, he had a lower class Irken hunch below him as a living stool for him to put his feet up.

Tallest Purple came into the room, head low, one hand straddled behind his back, and he clicked his fingers impatiently. "Where's my stool? Huh? Huh?"

At once an Irken on standby hurried forwards and threw herself down on her hands and knees, shivering where she knelt in awe and fear. Purple got into his High Seat and placed his small feet behind her PAK.

"I _love_ being the Tallest." Red stated affably, draining his glass and lifting it for a refill. A decorous Irken officer came and refilled it from a crystal jug, and he gave Purple a fresh glass as well.

"Me too! Me too!" Purple concurred happily, toothily grinning. He had never thought about it much before; the privilege of their position, because they were seemingly born into it, and had no reason _to_ be grateful. For the rank had simply fallen straight into their lap. "Hey, you!" Purple sniped, challenging the officer who had just poured them the drinks, "Where's the smeet meal I asked for? It has to be fresh! Understand? Why has it not arrived?"

The officer bowed, "I shall get some at once! My sincerest apologies my Tallest!" And he practically ran to the door.

Purple looked to where the officer had left for a moment, sure he would re-appear in 5 seconds with a plate of delicacies. But Red distracted him by saying. "We're the best leaders the Armada ever had! We've conquered Ajax 18, we've obliterated about a hundred moons, and we've vanquished Unta and... and... some others that I don't remember the names of. But there was a lot of 'em! We should celebrate for all our hard work and throw a BIG party!"

"I love parties!" Purple agreed at once, because he really did love parties. It was in fact, all he and Red did. Party.

"There's also something ELSE we should be celebrating." Red slyly reminded him, draining half of his Vortian drink with one huge swallow. He awkwardly planted his heel on the back of his Irken 'stool's' neck, causing the drone to whimper in pain. "Shut up!" He yelled, and smacked the Irken's head with his claws.

"Oooh, and what's that?" He asked, an eternal lover of good news, especially if it was news that further supplied their lavish needs and fancies.

"We haven't heard from Zim in ages. I think he may be dead. Our slight modification in his SIR unit may have done just the trick we were hoping for."

"Really? No! No! I couldn't hope for such good news! It just doesn't happen!"

"Yes, and with him out of the way, the Armada, our _very_ cause is no longer threatened! We've saved our species, our legacy, by taking him out of the picture! He's such a royal fuck up that doing it ourselves may have been more costly than I was prepared for. He has this... knack you see. For killing Irkens. For killing Tallest. I knew that once we couldn't have him killed in the Trial, old age might surely get him. But even that was taking too long. So I had to speed things up a notch."

"What exactly did we do? I try to dump everything concerning Zim out of my PAK's memory processor. It's such a waste of data!" Purple confessed.

"You are simply not cunning enough, my good comrade." Red said, grinning wolfishly as he cradled his glass in his two claws. But then his smile dropped all too suddenly, and his visage twisted into a dark rage. "I was so... ANGRY when he just walked out of the tribunal, all smiling, so happy! He had bested us, without even trying! It made me so sick. He knew what he had done, knew he had turned it around, and he knew what we had tried to do to him in return. He had murdered all those Irkens, Purple! All those Irkens! And he walked away!"

"And those Tallest!"

"Exactly! He had tricked the control brains somehow too, and, as his reward, he got to play around with our flag ship as if it was a mere toy! He had to be stopped. But... he had the luck of the devil. Misfortune seemed to follow all those who had ever stepped into his path."

"And?" Purple asked, looking at him with some passing curiosity.

"I shook his hand upon departure, and touched his PAK on its underside to plant the CPU chip. Don't you remember? You made some of the modifications in that chip."

"I did..." Purple bowed his head slightly in reverie. "I made it for the enemy warships."

"Originally, yes. And I adapted it to effect SIR units. It was a last ditch effort. I didn't think it would work. Power surges or refluxes are required to activate the CPU chip. It damages the modulator units and some other stuff that I can't be bothered to get into. But when he started sending in reports about his SIR unit malfunctioning, it didn't click straight away. I just thought it was another trick he was conceiving. He is a smart, murderous bastard."

"You think Zim is... SMART?" And Purple burst out laughing.

Red laughed too. His heels clacked in his Irken stool's back, causing him to groan miserably. "We should have done something like this ages ago!"

"He'll never find the CPU ship either!" Purple giggled. "Simple, itty bitty drones have no idea how their PAKs work! They weren't important enough to be given the training!"

"Thank Irk!" Red gathered himself. "You know, we should have just nuked his base, or... or instructed him to give birth to a hundred smeets, or... or delivered some fake Irken-virus-thingy to his doorstep. Now the thorn in our collective side is finally working itself loose! We are free of him!"

"Should we check?" Purple asked. "I mean, we can't really celebrate until we know if he's actually dead or not. I don't want nightmares, Red! We _have_ to be sure!"

"Fine! Fine!" He spoke to the big screen: "Show us live feed from Zim's co-ordinates at once!"

The screen showed a misshapen, dishevelled lounge full of laser burn marks and bullet holes. A curtain was torn loose from its railing over the far window, and the sofa was covered in bits of plaster. Gir was watching them, or rather, the TV as he feasted from an open bag of nachos. There was no sign of Zim.

"This is boring." Purple said listlessly. "Check his last report of his statistics, or his PAK condition, I don't care! Just hurry it up!"

Red cycled through various other cameras, but all the rest were blocked off. They only could view the lounge.

Finally, Red had Zim's data and latest mission reports dispensed into a readable format from the overhead computer. Purple watched his fellow Tallest read it, as he hadn't the stomach to read the data himself. He was too concerned about other more important matters such as food and comfort. But Red must have found something, for he smiled in supreme relief, folded up the laminated paper and tore it up in his claws.

"He's as good as finished. All his vitals are in the red. He will be a menace no longer!"

"Yay for us!" Purple threw up his glass. "Let's have a toast! To Zim!"

"To Zim!" Red heartily agreed. And they toasted their success.

xxx

 _Zim had been angry when Dib had suggested they go to the 'Treaty' from now on. To meet, in public? Before a hundred smelly, degenerate dumb humans? Zim had a mind to think that it was because Dib was afraid of him now, ever since the clash after school behind that brick wall alley with the wire._

 _Zim had sat on the sofa, procrastinating, while his sleek claws played on the keyboard of his Irken laptop. Beside him, standing menacingly erect on the floor were the leg braces. Zim tried not to steal a look at them, for doing so always elicited a dirty sneer on his face, and a throaty growl, but he couldn't help but look at them, and hate them._

 _He had made up his mind to hurt Dib. Maybe not now, and maybe not for the short term, but he would select his revenge at the right time, and get Dib at his most vulnerable somehow. He could not help himself. He had known cruelty. It had been beaten into him at a young age: an age of ruined past and tattered hope where, in the pain and half forgotten terrors, new iron purpose was beaten and forged into him, as molten heat and hammer forged a new blade. He was still fleeing from his past demons, and the pain, even now. Yes, it would always be a perpetual flight in his mind, and through the cold corridors within, there were always dark corners of madness waiting to snare him back down. And snare him they did. It was a madness that twisted him up inside, and he could never find the strength to expel the manifested horrors of his past. And he ran from it: ran from the ruin and the torment but his strength lied within. And he daren't go down there himself, to see what he was made of. To see what real horrors he had locked down there._

 _He went to clutch at the vial which he had, on occasion wore in his pre-emptive battle with Dib which, never turned out to be a battle at all. Just an all-out-defeat he still self-scolded himself for. When he went to snag at the vial, his claws snagged on air._

 _Gir threw his bouncy ball hard across the lounge floor and it rocketed against the opposite wall, rebounding back almost into Zim's laptop. "Gir! Stop bouncing that thing around! I can't hear my own plans circulating in my HEAD!"_

 _"Sooorry." Gir said in an almost suggestively sarcastic manner._

 _Zim went back to his laptop, eyes squinting at the data he was presented with. After a moment he blinked tiredly, stretched and yawned._

 _Gir, holding the rubber ball under one arm, sat with him on the sofa. "What you are up to?" He asked in his high sing-song voice._

 _The laptop was full of analytical data on the Northern scope of America. Zim was currently assessing Montana from his own satellite images. "I must plan my next plan. Dib has another thing coming if he thinks one little promise is going to stop me."_

 _"It's a BAD idea." Gir helpfully interjected._

 _"But it's a great idea! If I do a little bit of evil somewhere else in this filthy place they call 'Ameri-ka' the Dib-fool can't possibly know about it. I'm so crafty!" And he rubbed his gloved claws together, liking that he would and could develop his plans and work elsewhere without restraint. Dib would not like it, but only IF he found out about it. And Zim did not intend for him to find out._

 _"I'll be cold. And baaad."_

 _"Oh shut up, Gir! You like snow! Besides... I have plans and I'M going to make this work! I'm going to... going to..." He stopped short and turned to his SIR unit. "Do you think that I should forgive him, Gir?"_

 _Gir shrugged his little shoulders. "Forgive him for what?"_

 _"Exactly, Gir. Exactly."_

 _Zim?_

 _Zim?_

 _x_

Zim huffed annoyingly. The elaborate dreamscape was ripping away, revealing the grime of reality and the pain beneath. He squinted his eyes even more firmly shut to retreat back into the safety of dreams, but the nudges on his shoulder just grew more antagonistic.

Already the memory of the dream was collapsing like weak walls, and he didn't want to face the short future he was dealt with. Training had prepared him for much. But when it came to accepting your own conclusive death, that part of the training had been a grey area.

"Zim? Hey. I bought you a drink."

Zim gave another dull groan and he opened his eyes. The lanky figure of Dib seemed to fill his whole vision. He was fuzzy and dark. Zim blinked a few times and the world went into sharp focus. Confused, he looked around, realizing that he had been resting his heavy head on his arms.

"You fell asleep." Dib patiently explained from where he stood.

Zim jerked upright. He was sitting in his chair, at the main screen console. He must have got tired and fallen asleep by the keyboard panel.

"Don't get mad." Dib continued gently. "Rest is good for you. It's just that... we gotta fast track things if we wanna sort Gir out and help you."

Zim looked up at him for the first time. The middle aged investigator held a Styrofoam cup in one hand, and a very ugly jacket in the other. The jacket in question hung from Dib's fingers like a dead skin. It was stitched in many places. Dib, taking in Zim's questioning look, placed the jacket about his shoulders. The alien held himself rigid as Dib had just placed a bucket of thorns on him instead.

"You don't remember, do you?" He said. Zim caught the air of disappointment in Dib's voice. "I cut up one of my spare jackets and stitched it together for you to wear. To keep you... warm." There was quiet between them. Thinking quickly, to try and dispel the unseen but very evident tension, Dib pressed the Styrofoam cup forwards. "Here. Please take it. It's coffee. With some... painkillers mixed in. Under your computer's supervision of course."

Zim reached out to take the cup and Dib, feeling like some weight had been lifted off his shoulders, gladly gave it.

But Zim clearly wasn't done. He eyed Dib up and down clinically, as if he was evaluating a recently released criminal, and he was looking for the psychotic twitch in the human's eyes and in his fingers.

"I like that jewel around your neck. Where'd you get it from?" Zim tried to act casual about it, even going so far as to lean his cheek against the palm of his claws, his elbow on the desk. But the mean spitefulness was deeply seated in his dark eyes, as real and as terrifying as bullets in a gun.

"Oh... urm..." Dib flinched, for he had largely forgotten about the vial, so worried he had been about the ramifications of Gir, the hostile security system and Zim's bad health. "I was... urm... looking after it." It was all he could come up with, on the spot.

Zim looked him up and down idly for another cold moment that felt like an eternity to Dib. Finally, his excess of violence seemed to drain, for he had no heart for it. "I don't care how you obtained it. Just destroy it."

"E-Excuse me?"

"What? You want me to REPEAT myself? Throw it away! Pitch it down a drain; I don't care how you do it! Just be rid of it!"

Zim usually enjoyed seeing Dib squirm, and get all confused when all other alternatives had run dry. Now though, he was just tired. "But... but Gir said it was m-medicine!"

Admittedly, it perked him up a little. And he chuckled. Once. "Medicine? Eh. What a waste that would be. No, no it's nothing like that." He felt a great bubble of discomfort press against his insides, and his eyes burned with the pain. He coughed, took a deep breath that only fed the fire in his chest, and said: "What were we talking about?"

"Uh... the vial?"

"Oh yes! That! Just... just do us both a favour and drop it into the ocean. Now... where were we?"

"Capturing Gir?"

Zim looked to the main view screen, and at the last recording he must have been viewing before sleep took him. It was a frozen image of Dib in the Irken's locker room. Because he could not remember what it was he had seen, he hit the rewind button and hit PLAY. From the surveillance footage, they both watched as Dib in the recording went into Zim's wardrobe and started pulling apart all of his clothing. This was recorded ten hours ago.

Dib watched on, sweating. He smiled nervously. "Yeah. I had no idea you had a camera in there. I suppose you have one in your bathroom too, huh?" Because he had taken a leak in there.

Zim watched, evidently not liking what he was seeing. The recorded video showed Dib searching through each uniform, and taking them apart. Looking into each pair of gloves. Examining each tunic and sleeve. Then, much to Zim's dull surprise, Dib began to pull out little black devices from these clothes, and was throwing them into a pile.

Zim placed the untouched Styrofoam cup on the console in order to rub at his chest. "I'd like a fucking explanation."

A drop of sweat trickled down Dib's temple and into his left eye, causing him to wince from the sting. "I disarmed your uniforms. All of them. I had to. You tried to blow yourself up. I realize I've overstepped your rules or whatever, but..."

"You don't have the right." Zim spoke in a shrill whisper.

"Look. No more bullshit, Zim. I am _done_ with this carousel. We both know how we really feel about each other."

"Do we?"

Dib's eyes skirted left and right for a moment, as if unsure of his own self. "Yes."

"Dib. If I wasn't old, if there was no promise made, you'd kill me. And I you."

Dib stalled. Then he looked away. He could not argue with that.

"When I went to Montana on that day... in that blizzard..."

"You don't need to talk about that. I knew why you were up there, Zim."

"But you said nothing!"

"I didn't need to say anything. You meant to continue your mission. But ultimately, you didn't. Now we've gone too far together to back out. We used the promise as just an excuse for this so-called truce. But really, we're friends now. And friends trust each other. I've had your back. And you've had mine. But Gir is a very real threat, not just to us, but to hundreds of people out there! So what if I'm saving you? You'd save me! And we have to collaborate! If we don't, Gir will escape this base and do more damage! You must overcome your fear of me!"

"And you must conquer your fear of me as well." Zim replied calmly.

Dib hesitated again, and it was clear to the Irken that there was a whole lot more he wanted to say.

Little did Zim know that the recordings of Clara in his base were all stored and ready to be accessed. But he did not know this.

Because Dib was still hesitating, Zim spoke. "So? Do _you_ have any stupid ideas?"

"For your PAK, at least. I printed off its schematics... I think I've found a way to repair it."

But the Irken shook his head, looking sickened at Dib's suggestion. "There's no time! Gir must be fixed! I c-can wait!"

When Dib went to rest a hand on his shoulder, Zim flinched away, growling softly. "Enough with the work obsession! You can't do everything yourself!"

"But... But I NEED c-code 219! Without it... without it..."

"What even is code 219? You've been deliriously repeating it over and over!"

Zim then eyed him bitterly, as if Dib was making that part up. "It's uh... uh..."

"You can tell me! I'm with you on this one! Why else have I been struggling, and bending over backwards to help you?"

"You've... y-you've been bending over backwards? Doesn't that hurt?"

Dib shook his head. "What is 219?"

"It's a code. A regulation. The Tallest need to grant me it to repair Gir."

"Okay, okay. But that sounds so stupid! Why don't you just ask your leaders for help?"

Zim just looked at him blankly. The claws were gripping at his chest again.

Dib had to get around this somehow. "If I help you capture Gir, will you agree to come with me to my dad's lab?"

Zim sucked in a huge breath, and he looked utterly terrified as if he had just woken from a nightmare.

"I rescued you from that wire." He explained mildly, "You really think I'd be throwing you to the wolves now?"

"I... I don't LIKE this!"

"Neither do I, Zim. But if we don't do this, something is going to give. And it just might be your heart."

As Dib suspected, Zim blatantly discounted this information as if it was relevant to someone else. Someone not Irken. "Pah! I am an Irken Elite! I can withstand anything. Don't you fo-forget it!"

"What if we seal it with a deal? If I help you with Gir, then I want you to promise that you'll come see my dad for repairs. AND that you _don't_ use your PAK for anything. No tools, no leg things! No nothing! Are we clear?" Dib spread his fingers and offered his hand for Zim. Cementing a deal with a handshake was pretty dumb when it came to negotiating with an alien when such a gesture could not possibly apply to their loyalty.

Zim growled.

"Look at it more as a symbiosis." Dib helpfully added. "It happens in nature all the time."

When the Elite only sat there, looking frostbitten and angry, the investigator sadly withdrew his hand.

Zim sunk back, drained.

"Dib. Go to that tray on the left. Push the button."

"What? This tray?" Dib approached what appeared to be a medical work table in his right. But its lower drawers were more like activation hatches. And they were all glowing seemingly from within.

"Y-Yes! Pull open that one there!"

Dib did so, hackled when he had to follow Zim's casual instructions: simply because the old Irken had thin patience and if he got it wrong, the alien would promptly explode.

He opened the little tray, and out popped various syringe-like capsules, all tidily lined up neatly in dozens of rows, and they were all chilled. He removed one and waved it in Zim's direction. "You're after this?"

"Yes, yes! Bring it over here!"

"Not until you tell me what it does."

This clearly tipped the alien over the edge. "You GIVE that to me, right NOW! You are not my Tallest you piece of rubbish!"

Dib hesitated. Then brought it over and dumped it in Zim's awaiting claws.

Neatly, as if he was applying a band aid to his skin, Zim docked the tip of the syringe into his pale green neck, and seconds later he was smiling, and letting loose a big, hearty sigh.

"Was that... another painkiller?" Dib had to ask, knowing Zim already had a dose too many.

"It's rinauh." Zim replied curtly. "It's... it's... nice." And his dopey smile broadened, his right antenna peeling right back.

"You mean... it gives you a buzz? Jesus! How strong is that stuff?" He peered back at the rest of the syringes.

"Pick up a dozen and p-put them in your pocket for later, all right?" Zim said, his smile fading fast. He was waiting to see if his human would obey him. But Dib was already packing the stuff into his coat pocket to ensure he wouldn't cause anymore tantrums on the Irken's part.

But, he traded his compliance with a question. "Zim. How'd that piece of metal get inside you? It was obviously from Gir, so don't lie to me about that. I put two and two together. That, and the computer determined its origin."

"I... I fe-fell down some s-stairs."

Dib ignored this little rehearsed speech Zim liked to insist upon when he was cornered. "Did Gir... did Gir stab you?"

Zim's fuchsia eyes were looking elsewhere. "I don't know what you are talking about."

"He stabbed you. And you didn't come to me for help. In fact I don't think you knew, did you? Why else were you walking around with a limp for the better part of a week, while an infection festered away in your insides? Why didn't you use the autodoc yourself? In fact, why didn't you come to me?"

How up-to-date Dib was with certain things distressed the Irken.

"Because I'm strong!" Zim spat acerbically, swinging round to face him in the chair. "Because I am ZIM! You want reasons? Those are reasons! An invader must be above all danger! Must be healthy and fit! Going to the autodoc or YOU would be like admitting a fault in my combat regulations! And the Tallest would know about it! I could not deviate from the mission! The Tallest need me to fight! I cannot fail them! I... I didn't want them to know that I'm... that I'm..."

 _Dying._

 _Zim, there is no mission!_ Dib wanted to say this, and honestly, he nearly did. But he clamped his mouth shut. If he truly wanted to destroy Zim's mentality, then sure, he could go ahead and tell him what he possibly already knew. But there could be a deeper reason. Zim might just fear the autodoc, and instead come up with false excuses to refrain from seeing his own organs deteriorate.

Dib sighed and because Zim had made no move to do so, he casually slipped Zim's arms into the make-shift jacket and buttoned him up. "Fine, space monster. You've made your point."

xxx

"Look. We're not going to go far. We can't in your condition."

He knew Zim would ignore his critical advice. Zim was pretty good at ignoring 'critical advice' even if it was totally in his benefit. He had done it when Dib was a kid, and now, even in his elderly years he still did it without a hitch. "Don't be a fool, Dib worm! This will be easier than plucking the wool from a saunpus! Besides, when I've taken rinauh, I am more than capable."

Zim did not deploy his spider PAK legs this time and he walked with a bad limp. So far they had gone up the conduit and into the kitchen. The sun was shining through, and its warm sunny light highlighted the empty lounge. There was no Gir.

"Computer!" Zim croaked. "Detect Gir's signature! Is he in the base?"

"Negative, Master."

Zim growled and checked the front door. "You left it unlocked?" He shouted at Dib who was two steps behind him. The painkillers were obviously making him feel a lot better.

"Hey, it's not me that has the insane robot!"

Zim screamed out weakly in rage, only to splutter with watery-sounding coughs. He dipped down on his knees until he was leaning against the sofa, crestfallen. Then he started to itch at his glued wound by racking his claws up and down the left side of the jacket.

"Don't do that!" Dib advised, actually having to pull his claws away.

"But it's so itchy!"

"Look, what are we dealing with here?" Dib opened the door for himself and peeked out. There was no way to tell if Gir had left whilst wearing his disguise or not. But it was a very sunny day for late February. March was only a day away. The pockets of snow in the tall shadows were melting.

He closed the door with a gentle click and confronted the wheezy little Irken.

"Zim, how _did_ he get so... crazy? He's always been... less crazy. What happened? What was the last thing you remember that was different about him? The disc I watched didn't tell me a whole lot."

Zim scrabbled ungracefully onto the couch. "I d-don't know! I can't remember _that_ far back!"

"Think, Zim, think! Something must have happened for Gir to suddenly be this way! How long has he been like this? A week? A month? When did you make that disc?"

Zim hissed, his hooded eyes glaring at the human in frustration. "I don't know! With that robot it could have been anything! I have enough to do, let alone babysit a robot all day! He does crazy stuff! Creative stuff! Stupid stuff! While I try and work!"

Dib tried to keep a lid on his patience. If he got flustered too, he'd only be feeding Zim's angry fire. "Anything else happen that was like this? Has he ever done it before?"

"Y-Yes. Twenty or so years ago. I was... um... modifying his 'duty mode' to higher levels and manipulating his behavioural S.I.R unit modulator using a handheld remote." He noticed Dib's disapproving frown. "I was trying something different, all right?"

"And then what?"

"When he got dangerous I used the same device – I just switched his modulator back to standard settings."

"Uh huh." He did not remember any of this happening in the past, so Zim must have contained it very well. "So why is Gir acting dangerous now? Have you messed with his settings again since?"

"No! I don't KNOW!"

"Well, something else could have reset it." Dib helpfully suggested to try and keep Zim thinking, something he seemed to be doing less and less. But he couldn't blame his alien. He was pumped full with painkillers and the previous medicines that Dib had spoon-fed into him. He was still confused, still disorientated, and every now and then he seemed to be plagued by the chest pains that were managing to break through the wall of pain relief.

"There is nothing else!" The invader squealed in disappointment. "No isolated download! No virus! No recent catastrophe! I put him in the Assessment Pod and it stated that his behavioural modifier chip was damaged as well as something about his modulator." Zim looked stricken as if he had just been shown the death of his race. Dib doubted he would cry, but he looked frustrated enough to do so. The emotions were there, threatening to spill out, yet some deep, integral training kept him from expressing anything else aside from anger and annoyance.

Dib thought about it. And something surfaced, though it was vague. "Hey, wait a minute!"

"No, I don't want to." He snapped, taking the phrase literally.

Dib's mind was racing. "That night... when I found you all bloody and, and Gir had called me..."

' _Urm... you need to come over. My Master spilled all his sauce everywhere. I'm worried. Someone could slip on it.'_

"What about it?"

"That was the first time he attacked you recently, right? In twenty years?"

"I... I guess so."

"It was the same night we had that EMP black out. You mentioned the EMP on the disc!"

Zim glanced up at him. It didn't look like he was making the connection.

"Which means," the human continued, "that if we can re-create another EMP across the city, it just might turn Gir back to normal!"

Something did flicker in Zim's eyes, and he looked thoughtful. His anger seemed to have dissolved temporarily, but the rage could make a quick comeback at any time. "The e...m...p..."

"Yes." Dib encouraged, coming over to kneel beside him. He did not sit on the couch. Doing so may yet again frustrate the Irken. "Remember? My dad was experimenting that night, and all electrical machinery stopped working across all of Lincoln."

"Y-Yes..." Recognition lightened his mood, but he still did not approve. "Initiating another... E...M...P... is just a weak assumption, stink beast. Faults cannot be corrected as easily as all that, you silly, silly human."

"But the EMP MUST have caused it! You said so yourself in that video you made!"

"That may be so, but y-you aren't getting it through your big head, are you? The EMP may have burned out his fragile circuitry but it isn't the solution!"

"But there must be a way!"

"There is." Zim stated glumly. "I've been trying to make new parts for him... but... but..."

 _...You got too sick._ Dib thought, feeling really bad for him.

Zim seemed to melt where he sat, looking drunk on medicine and strong pain relief. Dib didn't know how far he'd make it. It was a struggle to get him moving without the use of the PAK legs.

How was Dib going to do this? If he left the Irken here, Zim would be wracked in worry and he'd still stress out. But if he brought the Irken along with him, was it possible he'd make his health even worse? The painkillers and other medicines he'd taken would wear out possibly in four hours, maybe less, given Zim's high metabolism.

Zim seemed to have an inclination to where Dib's thoughts were taking him. "Here." He said, coughing. He passed him the Irken weapon he had threatened him with not very long ago into his hands. It was the Absolute. "I.. I don't want to lose Gir, so use it sparingly. It's one of my best weapons. It's called the Absolute."

"And you?"

"I will suffice."

"So, you're coming? We're going to capture him?"

Zim shrugged weakly. "I... I must." Then he coughed into the back of his hand.

"Okay. But I'm taking charge. You do as _I_ say, Fudgekin. You got that?"

Worryingly, Zim only smiled and did not bluster back with insults.

 _He's hurting._ Dib knew, deep down.

 _I've done this to you,_ Dib thought. _But I did it to save you. Are you glad, Fudgekin? Or are you sad that you're still alive and suffering? I want to ask, but I'm too afraid of the answer._

Dib looked the weapon over, feeling its cool, rubbery plastic against his clammy, hot hands. It was surprisingly heavy and very substantial. He was pretty sure it would survive being dropped from a massive height, and have the capacity to do tons of damage. It was purple, and embossed in dazzling blue that sparkled depending on where the light hit it. The trigger was small, and perfectly suited for a dainty three-pronged hand.

"Do I need to cock it?" Dib asked, not sure if he wanted to be handed such a responsibly. But when he saw that Zim was holding his aching chest again, he knew he had to lead.

"N-No... Earth smeet. Just point and aim. When you are ready, squeeze hard on the trigger. It likes abuse. Don't be afraid to slap it around a... a little."

"Zim, are you okay?" He really didn't look it.

"When... when we find that bastard child of m-mine..." The Irken Elite continued as if he hadn't heard or much cared for Dib's question, "Shoot his leg off. His legs can be replaced easily. Then we'll carry him back to the containment room. I will encase him in something temporary until I can fix him."

"Zim, you can barely keep your eyes open. You're in no condition to..."

"Silence!" He hissed, gesturing out with his free claw, "I'll have no more disobedience! We do this now!" He shifted himself from the couch and almost went to use his PAK legs. He thought better of it and instead limped over to his drawers. Out came his black wig and human eye contacts. He slapped these on while Dib drew to his feet and came over to open the front door.

Zim growled and limped towards the open door but Dib stopped him when he was almost there.

"No." He said. "Wait for me and rest. First I'm going to hand the schematics over to my dad. _Then_ we'll deal with Gir." He handed the Absolute back over to Zim, who took it with obvious disappointment.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Haha, see, Zim wasn't so innocent after all! LOL. I don't know why I love a psychotic Irken, I reaaally don't. Anyways, there you have it! I hope you all enjoyed it! I think, personally, this chapter was slowish, but they'll pick up really quickly again!

 **Zim:** Your insecurity is blabbing again. Shut it up.

 **Dib07:** How? Zim? HOW?


	26. The Professor

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Ah here we are! Another update guys and gals! OMG! It's here! Holy icetarts!

And yes, *fingers crossed* my laptop has been working correctly for the last 2 days, but I don't think it will last. I am still reluctantly thinking about buying a new laptop, as this one has the jitters.

I'd like to dedicate this chapter to **RissyNicole ** for her adorable, cute little fan art picture from the Fudgekin oneshot and I'd like to thank her for the praise she has given me as well! :)

* * *

 **Guest**

Thanks again and again! Ooh the praise keeps coming! I beamed like a lighthouse when I read your review! Hahha, I know, only I know the ending oh man! And we're getting there! One chapter at a time. Yeah, I had no really good stories to read at the time that would sate me, so I had to make one. Now I've made 8 of them. XD Yeah, I rewatch the show as often as I can, it's so addictive. I wish there was more to watch. No prob! I could read your review very well! I just hope you can understand my reply okay! Yeah, the Tallest are _really_ nasty. Trust me, they can get even nastier in another story I am writing. I just love emphasising their already horrid cruelty. Because it's what they are. Not that they can help it, the Empire has made them like that, as the Empire as made Zim as _he_ is. Thanks for your generous feedback! I loved it!

 **Alexa**

Here you go, Alexa! To keep you going hopefully until next time! XD Thanks for the review! It was awesome!

 **GeekySkeleton**

Oh thank you Geeky, and I'm glad to see you back! I'm sorry to hear you had a bad morning. Trust me, at work I have some pretty horrible days where I have to put up with some really mean customers. So I know what it feels like to feel down. I'm happy my story has been cheering you up, and keeping you going. I just LOVE writing the duo! I am very joyous you love reading their endeavours with each other! Their interactions are the best! I think, one of the most memorable scenes for me between them is coming up in a few chapters. It's called 'My Dark Place.' I can't give anymore away! But man, Zim has ALL the best lines! Ah! The feels!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 26 (31): The Professor**

Dib did not drive very far. In fact, once he had got into his car, the first naughty thing he did was have a cigarette. Then, with the windows rolled down, sitting in a seat still smelling slightly of Zim's blood, he got out his phone and dialled Clara's number.

He sat with the phone against his ear, anxious and still tired, his spooked eyes roaming the snowy street for Gir. He wished he hadn't plonked the Absolute back into Zim's claws. He felt mercilessly open without something to hold back a crazy android. What he had seen of the robot, though only brief, was enough to turn him back into a small boy. He remembered the way Gir targeted the cars, and the bird that had been resting on a tree branch, and the cold way he had killed it. It emphasized the fact that Gir was no child but a killing machine meant for war.

And he saw but one way out of this: and that was by destroying Gir.

Dib liked to think that he was brave, and had always been brave. If it wasn't for Zim's callous plots when they were young, he might never be the daring man he was today. But hunting a death-delivering robot was not one of his fancies.

"And here I was, condemning Zim's injuries as accidents." He mused to himself, one hand gripping the steering wheel of the car, his cigarette in the other. "When all along, he'd been abused by Gir. And he said nothing."

 _If I'd answered his phone call when Clara had been kissing me... things might not have taken such a wrong turn._

 _If I had listened to him long before, but it's his fault! HE should have let me in! Should have trusted me! Should have told me!_

"Zim. You're such a fucking dipshit."

His eyes were mild and drifting, his thoughts freely roaming inside his head now that he was no longer being shepherded by ECG lines, alien screams and the physical strain of time.

The young man realized with faint dismay that he had yet to tell Zim that he and Clara were engaged. That had been the reason he had come to his doorstep in the first place.

The ring tones kept dialling. Then he was listening to her answering machine.

He took a drag on his cigarette and watched the hazy smoke swirl out through the open window.

 _She's not answering. It's eight in the morning and she's not answering._

 _I bet she's gone to the police._

 _No, no way!_

 _The way she held Zim in her arms... no... she wouldn't. She gave me her word._

So where was she?

He put the blue Toyota into first gear after releasing the handbrake and gently edged it out onto the road, only lackadaisically looking for Gir. The late February cold made him regret not wearing his jacket, and he made a mental note to get another before returning. He could smell Zim's sickness on him: the blood, the bodily fluids, and the chemical tang of Irken disinfectant. As soon as he saw his father, he was going home to have a quick shower, and change into some fresh clothes.

Gir did not seem to be anywhere, and he was quite glad to avoid looking any deeper for him right now.

Putting the phone on the empty car seat, hoping Clara was okay, wherever she was; he took his car up a notch and drove deeper into the city. Heading North.

xxx

His father's lab had expanded over the last decade in a grand and expensive way. In fact, it was always expanding. For every invention the professor made, another wing or section was added until the place basically became a complex labyrinth of corridors, rooms, stairways and offices. And each level needed security clearance of differing grades. His father worked here so much, in fact, and hardly ever went home, that he had built his own private study at the back of the main lab where he conducted things in private, or just to catch up on some sleep.

To Dib, the whole complex was like a university for its size and capacity. And instead of students, scientists flocked here in their hundreds, all dressed in long white coats. When Dib parked in the huge parking lot and made his way to what he believed was the main access point of the building, he was stopped by a security guard.

"You're not a scientist." The guard said, looking him up and down vigorously as if Dib had come here specially to cause a ruckus.

"I'm Professor Membrane's son, Dib." He said, perfectly used to this kind of treatment. Wasn't his scythe of hair proof enough? He'd been seen on TV _with_ his dad, taken photographs _with_ his dad, even signed autographs and attended charity events WITH his dad. And yet, despite all this, the resemblance to his father and his face on TV seemed to go out the window on many occasions. He supposed that yesterday's news really was yesterday's news.

"Do you have some I.D?" The security guard asked.

"Yeah, yeah." He handed him his security clearance badge. As the guard checked it over suspiciously, more scientists passed them to get into the main building. Dib was totally clueless on how he was going to bring Zim here. He'd freak at all the men wearing lab coats, convinced he was going to be strapped to a table and be taken apart by these very same men.

The man handed it over. "May I see your bag?"

"Oh yeah."

Dib gave him his little duffel bag, remembering their conduct here. Because the laboratory was so highly established with possible futuristic weaponry it was vital to stop any potential terrorists at the door, or a spy working for some other country. All recording devices had to be removed, including mobile phones.

The guard peered through his belongings, confiscating his phone and his MP3 player. Luckily he skimmed through the soft, truculent alien schematic sheets with little to no thought.

He passed him his bag back. "Report to me to recover your belongings." He said.

"Is my dad in there working? Do you know if I can see him?"

"Last I heard, he was in a meeting. He's always in meetings. But ask at reception if you can have an appointment."

"Thanks."

He turned towards the main entrance, following a couple of young scientists as they had their card scanned at the main door. The electronic door opened, allowing them access, but when Dib went to follow, the door slid shut on silent hinges so fast that he almost walked into steel-plated glass. Grumbling, he raised his card and again the door opened.

He stepped inside, realizing at once how chilly the front reception room was. Even in winter, and his dad still liked to keep the air condition on full. He supposed that it was to help keep the machines and computers from overheating.

Dib took a moment to look around the room.

Everything was functional, clean and neat. It was something Zim would probably appreciate. There were potted plants, though he was no botanist and could not place their names, and there were paintings from ambiguous artists hanging on sleet grey walls.

Across from him, situated between a pair of elevators, was a long oak desk leaden with laptops and coffee mugs. Behind the desk was a female receptionist. On her posh metal name badge was the name: Vixen.

Dib approached the desk and rested his elbows on it. A group of men in those white coats walked on by to access one of the elevators. A few more took the stairs which was on the far right. Everything looked so clean and posh, as if he had stepped into a rich mansion and not a functional laboratory.

Vixen stopped typing on her laptop and offered a rehearsed smile to the young man. "May I help you?"

"Um, yeah. I'm looking for Professor Membrane. Do you know where he is?"

"He's on the fifth floor, but he's in the middle of a very important meeting. Do you want to leave a message?"

This custom of his father always being too busy was fairly normal. Numerous times as a child Dib had wandered into the lab to see him, crying from a cut knee or because he was hungry and had had his money stolen from some other kid at school. He remembered sitting in his father's study, waiting for hours to see him. Only, he never showed up, and he'd often go home, lonely and sad.

"No, I must see him in person. It's kind of... an emergency." He even opened up his bag before her and produced the flimsy, laminated schematics. "You see these? He _has_ to see them. Like, right now. I don't have a lot of time!"

She did not even ask him what they were for. It was obviously above her pay grade. "Well, the best I can do is take you to the fifth floor and have you wait outside. But these meetings can last hours."

"As long as I see him soon." He said.

As promised, she took him up to the fifth floor, granting him clearance with her own security card. Dib tried to take a peek at what the other scientists were doing, but what he saw behind glass windows offered up no clues.

"Here we are." They were in a corridor that was softly furnished with posh 19th century chairs, side tables with plants on them, and more decorative art pieces on the cream coloured walls. It was like he had stepped back into an estate house again. There was even a grandfather clock at the end of the corridor, ticking down the seconds. He never knew his father had such taste for decor. But then again, he had never been in this section of the lab before.

"Thanks... uh... Vixen." He said.

She nodded. "You're welcome." And she left.

Dib sat down on one of the elegant mahogany chairs, clutching the duffel bag to him. Beside him was a steel door, and he could hear voices chatting away inside. He guessed that was where the meeting was taking place. Occasionally a voice would get louder, and he'd hear the words. It sounded like there were quite a few people in there, and at times he could hear his own father talking amongst his peers.

After about ten minutes, the voices took an angry turn.

"You must take it more seriously! These are peoples' lives you are messing with!"

"I understand perfectly, Gerald. But you see, there was a crack in the outer integral casing, and the surge of power spliced right through! It was an oversight, I agree, and it won't happen again!"

"It cost millions of dollars worth of damage! It reset many bank accounts, had hospitals run on emergency power! Phone lines went down, traffic lights went on the fritz, causing accidents nationwide! I don't think you understand at all!"

"On the contrary, I do. The integral core has been established with a firmer coating and the crack has been sealed."

"Are the experiments still ongoing?"

"Oh yes. It must! In a matter of years, we'll run out of oil. This is the only course of action! We must prevail! Or we switch to using something absolutely preposterous! Like water! Which is also running out, as I keep reminding everyone!"

There was a brief clap of hands.

Dib kept his eye on the grandfather clock, wondering how Zim was doing back at his home. It was foolish to believe that he'd only be here for an hour at most, when in reality he might not be back until the evening.

 _Hold up a moment there, Dib._ He thought. _Let's look at this realistically for a moment. IF Zim's PAK gets fixed, and I mean really fixed, like, if my father somehow did the impossible and made it as good as new, there's a whooping big chance that Zim'll be young again. And if he's young again, he may revel in this sudden leap of vitality and fully embrace his evil nature again. He may even set his sights right back on Earth, and want nothing more than to see it burn. And then what, Dib? And then WHAT?_

Zim had even said:

" _Dib. If I wasn't old, if there was no promise made, you'd kill me. And I you."_

Dib had never felt pushed so far into a corner.

Suddenly the door opened and scientists of various ages began to walk out. Not all of them were wearing lab coats either. Some were in suits or formal attire.

The last one to emerge from the room was the professor himself. Seeing him again was something of a fantasy. Dib stood up from the chair and threw out his hand for his father to shake.

"Dad! Dad! I've got to talk to you in private!"

The professor shook his hand gladly. "My son! Good to see you! Keeping well I trust? Still pursuing those rascally ghosts and aliens?" Though he had changed little in the past two decades, his scythe of hair had grown much longer, and his hair had turned completely white.

"Uh, yeah!" He said, knowing how much his father still disapproved of his career choice. "Look, can we talk?"

"I'm very busy, son! I'd _love_ to chat but I have an appointment with the oil company in twenty minutes and I have yet to cancel my engagement with Douglas! Run along now, and I'll see you next month perhaps? I might have an opening by then!"

 _A month?_

 _A blasted month?_

"No!" Dib actually got in the way of his father and pushed the schematics into his chest. "This is serious!"

"My work _is_ serious! That is why the whole world needs me! Now stop playing games and let me pass, my boy."

Because he had no other cards to play, and scared of losing all significance, he blurted: "It concerns Zim!"

The professor looked at him for a strange moment as if his son had just uttered the secret formula to immortality.

"I beg your pardon?"

Dib wasn't sure if his father was interested, or just annoyed. Usually he could never tell, as his father never seemed to remove his eye goggles. And his father was never interested in his son's private affairs, his friends, his enemies, or his life, unless science had something to do with it.

"Zim! Here, just look at these schematics."

"And what is this about? Why does this concern your foreign green friend?" The professor lifted the pages to his eye goggles, peering at them with some curiosity. Then he shifted through them. If anything, he started to look baffled. Most things he understood in five seconds. But this wasn't one of those times.

Now Dib knew he had to lie. After all, this was the game he needed to play to save his little alien. If his dad realized he really was dealing with an alien, then Zim would be a prisoner until he died. The sense of great irony was not lost on him either. After all these years of trying to expose Zim, and being ignored, he was now trying to protect him, which, in the end, might just backfire. "Um, well, you see, Zim has this... device on his back... and it's starting to... not work... so good. And I wanted to know if you could... maybe..."

His father suddenly slipped the schematics into his pocket, and looked around, spooked, as if someone had overheard them. "Not here, son." He said. "Let's go somewhere more private! Then we'll discuss it."

Dib's heart lightened. But strange confusion blighted this otherwise good feeling. His father was... listening to him for once? Should he be worried? Seconds ago, the professor was adamant that he didn't have time, and had about a thousand other things to do.

 _Maybe he's just sparing me a few minutes? For old time's sake?_ He thought, but it was a wary thought.

He had never had to lie to his father before. He knew it was for a good cause, but what if his father... found out? And crucified Zim to the wall? How could you even begin to lie to one of the smartest people on Earth?

He followed the professor to the elevator. Several more people got on, and they cheerily congratulated his father on whatever it was he had achieved yesterday.

When they reached the ground floor, his father heading towards another section, Dib asked, "So, how's Gaz been lately?"

"Oh, your sister? Fine, just fine! She's hooked up with that Gary fellow, hasn't she?"

"Oh... yeah? They're going out?" He was confused. _Was_ she going out with someone? He had been kept out of the loop. Was it _the_ Gary he knew, or some other sod going by that name?

"Last I heard! Wait, that was two years ago! Never mind! For all I know they've had a baby by now, or they've split up! Such is the human way! And how are you getting on, my boy? Seeing anyone lately?"

"Actually, yes. Her name's Clara. We're engaged!"

"Excellent, son! Just excellent!" And he could have smiled for him, but any expression was concealed behind the tall collar of his coat. But he gave his son a hearty pat on the back.

They went to his father's private lab, which was an isolated building at the back of the giant laboratory. At the front of the two storey building was a porch and a deck chair, making the place quite appealing. It had windows, and a front yard. Inside, it was a lot more high-tech. All the furnishings were pretty much stainless steel, with miniature robots doing the general cleaning and housework. A wheeled unit was dusting the table top, and another little blue gizmo was mopping up any crumbs on the floor. Dib had to sidestep in order to allow one of these little robots to pass by.

"Don't mind them," the professor said curtly, "they're equipped with sonar tracking. They don't bump into things!"

"Oh, right." He was amused by them, and liked to watch them whizz around, always finding things to clean up. "Why aren't they on the market yet?"

"Oh, you mean the CleanerBots? Have you seen my ad? Making the home a safer, tidier, cleaner place?"

"Um... not... yet." Had it been on TV? Or just on selected websites? He couldn't even remember the last time he sat and watched TV.

"Well, the reception was well received. But the public are not ready for such domestic advancements. They naturally mistrust robotics. They believe in their _tiny_ minds that they'll come alive, and eat them in their sleep! Utterly preposterous!"

Dib smiled faintly. He had an idea the public would think along those lines, but the mention of robots only solidified his resolve. "Now, about those schematics."

"Ah yes. I like it when you get to the point, son. So there is a scientist in you after all!" He pulled out the schematics in his pocket and flicked through them. "Fascinating material." He said, squinting at them. "Fascinating mathematics. Complex, though, _very_ complex."

"Yes, but can you understand them?" For if he couldn't, Zim's last chapter had already arrived. And there was no way Dib could get his head around most of the formulas and its cryptic numbers.

"Give me a moment, son! I have to say, these look very... very..."

 _Alien?_

Before the professor could utter what Dib suspected he would say, he said quickly, "The equipment on Zim's back is... is a prototype! Yeah! From a rival company that's trying something new in the realms of biology and science!" It was some quick B.S. but really he had no idea what else to really say. Distorting the truth was better, he gathered, than just lying.

His father had not taken his eyes off the schematics. "But... but the technology! How dare another corporation best me in these fields! What is this rival company's name? Is it Spanda? Those idiotic clowns?"

Dib only had some idea who Spanda was, but he did know that they had invented the electric dog robots, the 4D television and a squid that could live comfortably on land. "Yeah! Totally!"

"Ugh! I knew it! Their advancements are too fast! And now they're playing god?" But his father's tone seemed too exaggerated, too false. Something didn't sit right.

Dib wiped some sweat from his brow. "It's one of its kind. But Zim's life depends on it. Without it, he'll die."

"Die, how?"

"Multiple organ failure. The thing on his back is powered by blood. With each pulse, it rejuvenates the battery inside, like kinetic energy! It's almost infinite!"

Such a thing, though not quite like Zim's, was not unheard of. In this modern day and age, a lot of people depended on machines and batteries to keep them alive. Some people even had battery packs implanted into their spinal cords, or plates in their brains.

"So, what do you want me, your great father, to do?"

"Well, if you can understand it, I was thinking if you could find a way to lengthen the PAK's duration? Keep his organs working, you know?"

"That would entail a bypass. Or remove out bad parts, and change them into newer ones."

Dib nodded, inwardly cheering. This was the same conclusion he had come to as well.

"Replacing the entire machine would just be..."

"Impossible?" Dib asked.

"I am sure at this point."

"So, you'll do it?"

His father was looking at the blueprints again, nodding to himself. Then he glanced at his son. "In order to do the job properly, and to know what I can and can't do, I need to see this contraption he carries!"

The worry that had almost subsided suddenly spiked to dangerous levels. Dib swallowed, feeling disillusioned. This would inadvertently expose Zim. He had not planned to show him to his father whatsoever. He had planned that the professor would solve it by just studying the schematics. Now he was beginning to see how very misguided he was in this endeavour. He would have to discuss it with Zim, who'd no doubt freak, and freak some more.

"These schematics are simply not enough." His father continued, seeing his son hesitate, "I MUST see your little friend. Not only to evaluate this... contraption of his, but to also evaluate his current health."

Dib argued weakly, "He... he doesn't like people... much..."

"No, no! This is serious! If he wants help, he must learn to collaborate! I will try my very best, only if I have his full cooperation!"

"You know how difficult this is going to be, right?"

"Nothing is difficult if you just put your mind to it! It's the scientific way!"

Dib could imagine Zim's face when would break the news to him. "Thanks, dad. I know you're busy, but this is _really_ important. I don't think Zim has much time left. And that's if he rests. I... I don't want to lose him." The admittance just came out of him, and he realized how very much he wanted it.

The professor placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. Despite Dib's height gain, his father would always be a few inches taller. "If that is what you really want, I'm happy to oblige. If Zim refuses, just tell him one thing."

Dib leaned in to hear. "What's that?"

"Just say this one word to him: 'baloney.' He'll understand."

Dib frowned, absolutely confounded. To him, the word meant nothing. How would it mean anything to an alien?

"What?" He asked, wondering if his father was playing some sort of joke on him.

"Now, off you go! I have work to do! See you and your friend soon, I hope?"

Dib shrugged. "Yeah. Even if it means I have to strap him to a skateboard, we'll be here. How about tomorrow morning?"

"I can rearrange a few appointments. How does that sound? Bring him in as soon as you can!"

Dib actually felt bold enough to smile. He shook his father's hand. It was going to be close. "Okay. It's a deal."

* * *

 **Dib07:** There you have it! Another update! :) I hope you all enjoyed it! I don't think Zim will much like Dib's plans for him. XD


	27. Clara

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi guys! EARLY SURPRISE UPDATE! I've had the most gorgeous reviews, and I thought to myself, why not update today? And yes it is early over there in the States, like, it's 2am right now, but hey ho at least you'll have this update waiting when you get back from work/school etc. And then I won't have to worry about getting this update out in the evening in the UK. So here it is! PLUS I don't know about you guys, but I am way too excited to get these chapters out, and I can't wait! XD

Again to all my dear readers, this is a 2 chapter part. ^^ I couldn't cut off half of this update! It might have ruined the flow!

Here is a GIGGA AWESOME dedication to **Weevmo** and **BirdNerd03**. Because you guys are the best. We've had such wonderful message exchanges and you just make me feel flipping great! You have both done so much for me, and I thank you deeply for everything.

* * *

 **y** **ikes**

Lol. It's a shame Zim won't be laughing! Damn. He hasn't laughed since... I dunno! And he loves to laugh! (even though inna mostly evil kinda way)

 **GeekySkeleton**

THANK YOU! I know right, I actually really enjoyed writing the professor! It was such a refreshing change and scene. Haha, oh man, just you wait! Ahhh it's gonna be so good!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 27 (32 +33): Clara**

For an untold length of time, Zim stood facing the closed door, the weight of the Absolute in claws that quivered every so often. As soon as Dib had gone, he was left with a bitter mixture of emotions. He relaxed his upright posture, realizing how very draining it was to always be on the defensive.

And, in his deepening haze of forgetfulness, he was realizing just how much Dib was doing for him.

Even as he stood, staring at the door, still dressed in his wig and contacts, it took him a slow moment to apprehend the fact that he was no longer vomiting, or burning with fever. With the Absolute swinging down by his hip in one hand, he prodded and poked his left side again, sure he'd feel the hard lump of swelling still there. But the puffy inflammation had gone. Dib truly had taken something out. Something bad.

Despite this, it was hard for Zim to quash out his paranoid State of Reality, and hard for him to conceive the fact that Dib had no ulterior motives, even after everything they have suffered and experienced together.

Mangled as he was in motives, or what to do next, he stood staring at the door. In the deep well of his crumbling mind, he fancied that Dib had gone to seek outside aid, and _not_ to hurt or betray him in some way. And Zim was determined as ever to have everything fixed by the time the human got back.

Going behind the bookcase and into his lair, he sat at his worktable, fiddling with a SIR unit part he was still in the middle of making from scrap parts. His mind was now fixed on something, and it filled him with relief.

Yet, very quickly, in as little as minutes, he discovered that the drugs in his system were skewering his vision and disorganizing his thoughts before they came to anything, and he was soon making no end of mistakes. Not only that, but the pain kept upsetting him. In sour rage he slashed his chest with his claws, yelling: "STOP hurting!"

Then, because his anger sought relief, he swiped all his tools and delicate instruments from the table with his fist, and heard them smash and explode onto the floor.

Because he could not complete the task, his mind tackled the next one. He re-entered the living room, the bookcase closing behind him, and he went to pull on his little purple coat, only to realize he was already wearing Dib's jacket on top of his warm thermals. Disposing of the coat, Zim went to open the door, readying himself for the duty of locating and capturing Gir on his own. But his eyelids, heavy to begin with, dropped on him like shutters. His body craved more rest to combat the PAK's unstable energy demands.

Removing his wig and contacts, and placing them on the cabinet alongside the Absolute, Zim shuffled up onto the couch, eyes drawn shut. "C-Computer! Set an alarm! Wake me in fifteen minutes! I just... I just need a moment to repose."

"Yes, Master."

He was not used to his body dealing out all these new, unsavoury demands.

Fifteen minutes was enough time to sleep.

When Zim settled: lying on the couch, a plush cushion under his head, and a soft blanket wrapped around him, he was out like a light, whistling with wheezy snores, claws resting on his chest.

x

Zim supposed that he had to take the responsibility for Gir. It was his fault that he had mollycoddled that little robot, pretending Gir was something he was not. It had not helped that Gir was so special, not like other military units. Zim had even made a little toddler room for Gir to sleep in, and a playroom; all to the needs of the robot as if he was catering to a damaged smeet. And at the time he had done it without thinking. The system had tried very hard to remove from Zim everything that made him an Irken, and more into a soulless drone. But regardless of the Empire's efforts, he was still a creature with feelings. And he loved Gir.

If he failed. If Dib failed, then he would have to consider destroying the one thing that had kept him sane: had kept him more Irken than drone.

Zim had been on his PAK at the time, lying horizontally as he tried to do some intricate repair work beneath the Voot. A bolt down below kept loosening, and as it loosened, it leaked coolant: a heavy, bright baby blue liquid that sparked easily. The colour reminded Zim of the ice tarts he sometimes had when he remembered to eat.

He was due for an espionage session, because, despite the DAMNED promise, he was bored, and fuck that child if Dib thought he could get an Irken to obey him. So it was going to be secret! And it was going to be fun! Only, the computer had forecasted heavy snow showers across all of America, and the Voot had to be in prime condition before takeoff. He had forgotten to do the preliminary tests soon after of course, which led to an improvised landing in a human settlement, but before all that, things had been good. His hips hadn't been hurting him, and his knees and shoulders were only just starting to flare up in cold weather. That bolt wouldn't screw back on – it was wonky. He flung it out and reached for a new one when he felt Gir's foot against his claws.

Groaning, Zim pushed himself backwards to clear himself from the ship's underbelly and gave Gir a steely I'm-working-and-you're-here-bothering-me look. "What do you want?" He asked, setting his jaw and lowering his right antenna. To the casual observer, it looked like he was being outwardly aggressive to his S.I.R unit, when really he was just mentally preparing himself for whatever shit Gir had to spill out from his insane mouth.

"I can't sweep!" He cried. And he fetched out a big old book he had been hiding behind his back. "Can you read me a bedtime story?"

Gir was great at getting him at all the wrong times. Zim would be in the junk, taking a dump and Gir would be knocking on the door, asking for something. Or the Elite would be adding delicate drop by drop mixture into some arthritic potion and Gir would be there, bothering and bothering him. Or, or Gir would scream at him for attention just when Zim was tying rebellious cables together, preciously close to electrocuting himself.

Zim's reply was usually the same every time. "Look! I don't have time for this! And since when did you need sleep?"

"Story! Storeeeyyy!"

Zim didn't even know what the time was, and didn't usually care for it unless it was serving some purpose. He was focused on the next task, the next objective, the next lotion to apply, the next meal. He did not attune himself to the hours, and he slept very little. He supposed that, as he was aging, he should take more care of time, but he hadn't reached that stage yet.

Zim groaned. "Uh! The things I have to do! You know, day old smeets are more tolerable AND less of a bother than you! Day old smeets!"

"STORY!" Gir flapped the book around in a mild tantrum.

Zim could only blame himself yet again for catering to Gir's childish dreams and buying him the books, and the toys, and whatever else Gir happened to fancy.

Zim miserably looked at the leg braces standing two feet away, by the front of the Voot. It was a personal defeat for him each time he was forced to use them.

An Irken, using the human equivalent of technology as aid. How embarrassing.

His mind kept pushing it away.

He didn't want to even think about them, much less LIVE with them.

 _I will get better without them. I WILL get better without them!_

What was even more embarrassing was that they were actually working.

He could now walk a shy hundred yards or so without them, before he got too cocky or too impatient with himself again. Quite a few times he had bounced up and down, free of the braces; shouting: "I've done it! Zim has conquered balance! Hurray for me!" Only to fall flat on his face five seconds later. Then he'd be forced to shove the ugly contraptions back on his legs again, hot with shame and anger.

The weight wasn't all bad. But he was pretty sure they were making his hips hurt.

And it was not easy, having his right antenna to do the work of two. He had to keep adjusting it, making a conscious effort of doing so. If he lapsed in judgement, or loosened his concentration, down he would go.

And Gir would never laugh. He could have done, and Zim would have just taken it as the robot's usual dumb banality. But he never laughed when he fell.

Each time he walked without the braces, his antenna had to juggle to whatever direction he was moving, or his feet would lose their way, and his sense of perception would skewer. It was even harder when his eyes could see where he needed to go, and that confused his brain even more. But the braces locked him in, and he could re-correct himself easily without ever falling.

"You owe me for this one, GIR!" Zim reached for the boots and started wrenching them on, adjusting the knobs as Dib had shown him to keep his legs locked in. But as Gir started to scream in joy, he quickly added, "No. No stories. I'm taking you back to your room. Tomorrow we're doing some secret reconnaissance. Dib mustn't find out! I have to get everything ready in time! I'd be so much quicker without these damn boots!"

Gir's antenna drooped and he looked ready to cry. "But I want to find out what happens to Mr. Wasp!"

Zim sighed. Here he was, worrying about life, and missions and Voots, and Gir was worried about a simple fictional character. That robot had it sooo easy.

Zim stood, and took a few stiff steps forward. He felt more like he was in some kind of exoskeleton than actual braces, but it was better than slipping and sliding all over the place as if the floor was wet ice.

He took Gir back to his room.

It was pretty in pink, with lots of shelves covered in pig ornaments, pig toys and pig carvings. Gir's bed was tiny, not much bigger than a doll cot. It was shaped like a walnut.

"I spoil you way too much." He croaked, looking about the room with deep regret from his wrinkled eyes.

Gir hopped onto his bed and opened out the book. "Story! Please! Must find out what... what happens!"

"You can read."

"I can't." He actually defended.

Zim showed the top line of his teeth. "Gir. You and I are on a mission. We are soldiers of war. And stories... stories are stupid drivel that fills your head with falsehoods. They are lies. Stupid, stupid lies that serve to distract us from what is real, and what is actually important."

Gir sat and watched him, rapt.

Zim sighed and drew a claw to his forehead. "I can't believe I am having this discussion with a robot."

He turned to leave, the braces making heavy footfalls. And Gir started to holler and cry from the bed.

"No Master! Why! WHY?"

"Ugh! Enough! Fine! FINE!" He stomped back over and swiped the book out of Gir's nubby little hands. "Now stop your ugly crying!"

Gir did so, and sat, as rapt as before, paying full attention.

Zim sat on the edge of the walnut bed and looked at the glossy title cover. 'The Adventures of Mr. Wasp and Ghostie.' He shot out another aggressive sigh. _What the hell have I become?_

He decided to cut it short and just read the first page of the book and the very last one.

"You cheated!" Gir said, which was actually quite a cohesive reply for a robot whose head was about as empty as Zim's old heart.

The Elite growled. "How long is this going to go on for? Who on Irk even _wrote_ this twaddle?" He looked at the name on the front page. "Curse you Alex J! Curse you!" He flipped back to the front page, and began in a wooden, haltering voice. He was not used to reading back to someone, even if that someone was only simple Gir, and it still made him feel ever so slightly insecure.

Luckily the book was only nine pages long, its text simple for toddlers to follow, and he got to the end almost painlessly. "The wolf came to the door, and Mother Ghostie and Baby Ghostie were scared. But brave Mr. Wasp scared the wolf away with his sting. Then Mr. Wasp suddenly and inexpiably died and Daddy Ghostie and his family lived forever happily, or something. The end."

Gir looked up at him. "You made that last part up!"

"Did I? I guess I did. Now I've read you your story. Let me work."

x

The fifteen minute mark came and went. The computer had not set an alarm.

Zim had not moved from his nap, and was in a sleep so deep that he did not hear the first ring of the doorbell.

Somehow, despite everything, the chest pains had _finally_ subsided. If he slept, it allowed the PAK to rest too, and not upset his body quite so much. So long as he didn't start getting active again.

The doorbell rang again, followed by a brief series of taps on his door.

Zim opened one eye wearily, aware that it could be Gir returning from his latest outing with an armload of tuck-shop trinkets or boxes of stolen foods. If it was Gir, then he could jam him down the conduit and into some other chamber – if he had had the strength. And he really didn't. Or it could be the optimistic idiot Dib with another improvised plan that would 'save the day.'

The doorbell kept making shrill notes of music. Zim hoped they would get the message and go away. But they weren't leaving.

Thanks to the heavy pain relief that was still sauntering through his small system, he was able to slip down off the sofa and more or less hobble to the door without groaning. With a chagrined sigh he grabbed his contacts and wig and slipped them on before reaching for the handle and pulling it inward. Dib's ugly stitched jacket he wore was doing its job and keeping him warm, even if it made him smell horrible.

"Yes?" He groaned, looking sleepily out into the new March sunlight at the tall figure standing before him.

"Urm..." The voice was light, and airy, not the deep husk of the Dib.

Zim peered up, squinting. A female was standing there, looking down at him. He recognised her scent, he found, and her posture. "What do you want?" He croaked.

Surprisingly she did not back away like most visitors did when they came knocking at his door. Give them a look of irritable anger and they'd leave him be without further argument.

"Don't you remember me?" She was now kneeling down so that they were eye level. Zim's head was spinning from all the pain relief. He wasn't sure if this was actually happening, or if this was a hallucination. "I'm Clara."

"So?" He said, narrowing his eyes. "What? You want a reward or something?"

But, in his mind, a voice was saying: _'Clara? Clara? I know that name!'_

"Is Dib here? You're wearing his..."

"No." And he couldn't care less about him right now. Besides, he wasn't Dib's keeper.

"Can I come in?"

Zim grimaced. Then his comprehension dropped like a brick. Yes. He _knew_ her. He recognised her scent now, that flowery scent, and the milky softness of his voice. His eyes went wide with fear, and he scarpered further into the living room where he could hide and peer at her from behind the couch. He surprised himself at how fast he had just moved.

"No! No! NO! Get out! GET OUT!" He barked hoarsely, even when she was still kneeling on his porch and hadn't moved.

"I can't do that." Her voice was still so light, so gentle. She emanated no danger. But his own inherited paranoia and mistrust plagued him deep inside. "I've come to see you, Zim. I'm so glad you are on your feet again."

She stood up. She was not leaving.

The young Zim would have stood up to her, laughed in her ignorant face before then proceeding to violently evict her. He had been that invader, once upon a time, and he knew he ought to be disgusted at himself for being the lesser Irken he knew he now inexplicably was, but that Irken had been strong, with a long, industrious future not hampered by arthritis or pain. His first initiative was to hide, for he instinctively knew he did not have the energy to fight.

"Leave this instant, you insolent Clara creature!" Zim scratchy commanded from his place behind the couch, feeling his anger spread. How dare she just stand there, answering back at him! The Dib was allowed to get away with it, because he didn't know any better, but Clara?

Clara had a bag with her. She started opening it. Zim swallowed down his orders, both curious and frightened of what she might possess. But when she pulled it out, he found that it was a little tub of ice cream.

"For you." She said, handing it out to him like it was a peace offering. "I have many more things for you. Dib said you like sweet things."

He knew at once she was trying to bribe him. But why? What did she suddenly want? He had only met her the once, right? Why was she here, now? Her only interest was the Dib.

Zim did not leave his place of safety.

Clara perceived his intention and looked upset. At least, he assumed so. He couldn't read her as easily as he did the Dib, and that made her even more dangerous.

"Zimmy!" Her call was soft, and pleading, not the loud, demanding tones he had been expecting. "I don't mean to scare you!"

"Scare? Me? HA! Don't be foolish." She was still at the door with the cold winter sun on her back, and then she took a step forwards. He realized too late that she was now INSIDE his home when he could at least have slammed the door on her face. This costly mistake made him snarl at himself. His mind was fucking up, and the painkillers made it worse.

She stood on the carpet, tub of ice cream still in her hands. "Zimmy. I just want to talk. I... I know what you are."

This caught his attention. "And what's that?"

"You're..." She struggled to come out with it. "You are... an a-alien."

Zim started to laugh, and then he realized she was serious and he cut his giggles short. He stared at her from the corner of the couch, full of naked fear. _When? HOW?_ His mind reeled. _The Dib! The Dib had to have told her!_

"Get out!" He squeaked, "Out!"

"Please hear me out! Don't you remember? You had something inside you! I got it out with Dib's help! You nearly died! I had to keep you warm in my arms to keep you from going into shock!"

He more or less sagged where he sat, glued to the couch with fear. His eyes peered inward at himself; but the painkillers were making everything turn into a whirl of surrealism. By the time he pulled himself out of this hypnotic doze, she was now approaching a little closer. The tub of ice cream was still by her side, but now she was holding out something else in one shaky hand. It came to his attention that he was more scared of her than she was of him.

He tried to focus his vision which wasn't easy when it kept doubling at random moments. She opened her hand, and in it was Gir's little thumb. He recognised it instantly. Had it always looked so... sharp?

He growled up at her. "What are you doing with that? Give t-that back!"

"Zim!" She entreated. "Don't you understand? This was in your body! It nearly killed you! This is what I took out! Dib... Dib sent it to me in a package once he had analyzed it."

' _This is what I took out.'_

What she was saying made no sense. He had to assume she was lying. It was the only way he could understand.

"You know nothing!" He croaked, trying to back away from her.

She approached him again, and he huddled up, eyes closing, claws lashing. His directive for attacking the enemy was split in half. The Clara human was Dib's ally, and he did not wish to harm her, but his training instructed him to fight. All these instincts and teachings collided, and in the end, he just froze up.

The next thing he knew, he felt his black wig being removed, and he could feel fresh air taint his uncurling antennae.

When he next opened his eyes, Clara had moved to the front door and closed it. In her hands was his wig. She passed it back to him as if it was nothing unordinary. Zim cupped his hand on his right antenna. This shock weakened him still more. He couldn't keep up.

"The surgery took a lot out of you." Clara was still balefully close, and he snarled, wanting to bite her. Then her fingers softly tried to cup his left antenna to feel the crooked kink. It made him shrink a little lower, trembling in pain. She understood the message and drew her hand away. "I'm so sorry. Dib explained that he did this to you. He explained a lot of things."

Zim watched her, evidently stunned. She was not running away screaming, and she was not on the phone, shouting hysterically for the FBI. How long had she known, and why was she not aiding her human kind in his capture? He was so boggled by her conduct that he failed to hear her words. She repeated it.

"Doesn't matter now. Once broken, always broken." Was all he could manage in his shock. Quite frankly, he wasn't sure why something as insignificant as his antennae held her interest. Didn't his revealed appearance frighten her?

Zim then removed his eye contacts, thinking that this would surely tip the scales, and cause her to flee. She did look a little unsettled at first when her eyes fell upon his dull, fuchsia ones. But her unsettled appearance did not last either. And she was not running away. This did not add up. In fact, she was staring down at him in awe, as if he was some kind of mythic creature.

"I mean you no harm." She said again.

Zim stared back, but Clara's face kept doubling.

"I'm glad to see you are doing much better." She continued. Idly she looked about the room for a moment, perhaps appalled at the mess Gir had left it in, but she did not comment on it. "Have you been able to eat anything? And... go to the bathroom okay? Intestinal problems can be quite... complicated. I need to know so that I can help."

The old Elite just wilted where he sat on the floor, confounded by her reactions. Why was she not trying to expose him? Hurt him?

What had Dib been telling her?

She wanted to know his fucking eating habits?

She seemed to be more informed of his surgery than even _he_ was.

Because he wasn't answering, lost in the loop of his own drug intoxication and the eternal surprise of her presence, she decided to breach on a different subject to try and get him talking, and to try and win a little of his trust.

"Do you have any... special powers?" She asked conversationally.

"S-Special powers?" He asked, not understanding.

She nodded, glad that he had at least acknowledged her.

He glumly shook his head, only because he failed to understand the nature of her question.

Warily, with cagey eyes, Zim looked to the shiny piece of metal in her hand. Had she really taken that out of him? He remembered Gir stabbing him after the EMP blackout, but it had felt like it had happened long, long ago. And Gir's thumb had been missing ever since. To think that was what had been ailing him all this time? His PAK sure hadn't helped, but it made a lot more sense: the swelling, the fevers, the constant vomiting. All caused by one little metal digit.

Zim squinted at it angrily. If only he had known. He could have removed it by himself, and never would have needed help. Now the overload of healing versus infection had worn out his PAK all the faster.

This oversight made him feel furious.

Why had he not realized?

He trembled, full of unchecked rage at himself.

Clara's voice brought him back to the present situation, as much as it made him groan. "Zimmy, I won't hurt you. And I won't tell anyone. You're... you're really smart, aren't you? You can understand me perfectly, and you've probably lived here for some time. I could fire questions at you all day, and I want to, but you look tired. Do you want to... sit on the couch? You can still have some ice cream... if you want. I'm glad you are looking a bit perkier."

He didn't really want to talk. He wasn't the chatting type when it came to strangers. But sitting on the couch sounded a damn sight better than being on the floor all day.

"Fine." He rose awkwardly and made it to the couch, watching her all the while. Why was she even here? To study him? Take photos? Was he now a prisoner?

 _Kill her!_ He thought. _Do away with her! Feed her to the roboparents!_

He scrambled up onto the sofa and leaned blissfully into the cushions. Clara sat down beside him. He sneered at that.

"How long have you known Dib?" She asked.

"Too long." He quipped. He wasn't in the mood for ice cream either.

"You're very... insect like."

"Am I?" He wasn't at all interested. And he wasn't a fan of 'insects' either. The fact that she was comparing him with microscopic creatures was insulting. If he was younger, he'd be trying to push her out the door, aided by a rocket launcher but he was too weak.

"I don't want to be impolite. I'm intruding and I'm bogging you with questions. I... I just wanted to see how you're doing. I've... I've never seen an alien before." She paused, and Zim hoped that that was the end of it. Then she added, "You breathe through your mouth."

It was such an obscene deduction. Zim looked at her rather angrily as if she had just compared him with lowly insects again.

Clara noticed his look of aggression, and bit her lip, regretful.

Her sadness tugged at him. He hated it. Hated it so much. Because it hurt him to see her sad for some stupid reason.

Even so, he wanted her to stop looking at him, studying him. It made him uncomfortable.

Because he couldn't take it anymore, he said; "So? Don't you breathe through your fucking noise tubes?"

"Well, it's just that... insects breathe through their skin. They don't have lungs. But you breathe through your mouth, and your chest moves as you inhale. I think that's amazing. And you must be able to breathe in our atmosphere, which makes you a carbon-based life form."

He did not see how any of this was important, and it worried him that she seemed to know what she was talking about. "You're h-here to capture m-me?"

"No! No, never. Why would I help capture or destroy a living creature? You are a dream come true. Why would I ruin that?"

"Why are you h-here then?"

"To see how you're feeling." That answer was too simple, and Zim didn't believe her. "Can... can I touch you?"

"No. I'm NOT a science project."

She smiled then. It was an innocent, cheerful smile. "You're right. I'm sorry. I just... I just like you."

"Like... me?"

"Yes. I would have come over sooner, but Dib forbade me. He said he wanted you to find your feet first, and that there were some issues to deal with. He didn't tell me what, but I worried about you all day and night. I couldn't take it anymore. So here I am."

She fell silent, expecting Zim to say something, but he did not. He was half stupefied in drugs.

"What's your antennae do?" She asked at length to fill the awkward silence.

He shrugged. It did lots of things, of which he would not share with her. In truth, her company was making him grumpier. Maybe if he sat long enough and ignored her, she'd leave.

It did not take long for Clara to comprehend his prevailing stubbornness. The fact that an alien could even be stubborn further fascinated her.

"Well, I'll need to see your surgical wound. If you want me to leave, you'll have to let me see how it's healing."

Zim honestly wished he had not taken so many drugs. She was telling him something important, something bad!

Something about surgery and her involvement!

But his head kept spinning, and his thoughts did not obey him. They crumbled. Trying to understand her was like trying to model shapes out of mush. And if he stressed too much, the angina could promptly return, as horrible as he remembered it.

Despite his drugged state, despite knowing that he must be calm, he knew he was missing some vital link, something Dib had failed to tell him.

And Clara was practically giving it to him on a plate.

As much as his chest hurt, he now wished he had gone a little easier on the rinauh. Then his thoughts might have run as smoothly as train tracks.

"Zim?" She asked gently. "Can I see your wound? I want to see if the swelling has gone down."

This he could not agree to, even if he only understood half of what she implied. He crossed his arms in front of his chest, trying to focus instead on the cartoons on TV. He had no idea what he was watching, but he pretended he was interested in it regardless. The colours and shapes of the cartoons were distorted however, and wobbled and seemed to leak out of the TV screen. He couldn't understand a word the characters of the show were saying either.

"Zimmy." She pressed gently again. Her words were never demanding, or confident like the Dib's. If anything, they teased Zim to listen, as if her show of kindness was some secret weapon he could not guard against for long. He tried to hate her, and found that he couldn't. Her ways evoked some ancestral implication, and though he failed to have the tools to understand; to the orphan that he was, Clara would have reminded him of his lost maternity.

"Go away." He chided, keeping his eyes on the TV. If he stalled her long enough, Dib would arrive, defusing the situation. Or Gir might come in, or the police might show up to sling him into a cage. Either eventuality would have been preferable than giving her what she wanted.

However, he was just beginning to learn that she could be as stubborn as he was.

"Not until I see how you're healing up. Or I can make no prognosis. Your biology isn't the same as a dog, or a human. I need to have a look. I need to check to see if you still have a fever as well."

Her confidence further dismayed him. How was she _not_ scared of him?

When he did manage to glance at her, he saw his own reflection staring back in her eyes, and he then saw how very frightened _he_ looked.

Why would she even care? He wasn't human. Dib was a moron, and he cared, for all the good it did.

She seemed to read the distress from his stretching grimace. "I'm not doing this for my benefit. You don't need to be afraid."

"I'm not afraid!"

"I can tell when animals are anxious. They hold themselves really tensely, and their eyes get real big and they start to breathe faster."

Now she was comparing him with ANIMALS no less? The insults had gone too far. "Get out! NOW! You are not welcome here! Gir!" He turned to issue Gir with the order to abort his 'guest' but when he looked for the robot, he remembered he wasn't here. And shouting just encouraged his lungs to go into coughing spasms.

She hung back a little, watching him curiously. Her confidence was growing, it seemed to him. Perhaps she was learning that he was not going to hurt her.

"Zimmy," she said again, using that heinous nickname too many times for him to cope, "I noticed that you're... all alone. Is there more of your kind... around?"

Irkens were mostly solitary, and only came together during conventions, or when they were called-in for a mission briefing or other counsel affairs. Some Irkens tolerated working in teams, but most did not. "I am all I need." He huffed.

"What about your family?"

 _Family?_

He turned to her again, bemused how a human could suddenly shock him so. Clara held his gaze this time. She was fiddling with Gir's thumb nervously in her hands, but she wasn't looking away.

"Family? Is that what you humans call it? When... there are... teams of you?" He quipped, looking to see if it was a trick answer.

"You know, like a mother, and a father. Don't you have a mother, Zim? Everyone has a mother."

"I have no need of these 'mothers.' And to answer your silly little question: no, I do not have one. Now enough with your foolishness. Please, just leave me alone."

Clara gazed at him ruefully. "You have no mother? Then... then you are an orphan."

"Holy IRK! Your ugly persistence infuriates me!" He lifted up the skirt of Dib's jacket, unzipped his thermals at his left side and exposed the ugly, glued wound before zipping it back up again. The 'grand reveal' lasted about two seconds. If Clara had blinked, she would have missed it. "There! Enjoy your paltry victory!" He pointed at the door with a shaky claw. "Now go!"

She had tears in her eyes, he noticed. Had he frightened her? Had his anger finally carried the message to the thick-wall of her meat brains? Then she stood up, and Zim actually exhaled gladly, thinking he'd won. He had not expected her to then wrap her arms around him. He tensed, snarling: every instinct yammering at his senses to kick and claw and bite and kill.

Her warm odour smelt of summer, bluebells and soap. She also smelt a little like the Dib.

Her arms pressed lightly around him, making him think of warm refuges, and places of safety.

"I'm an orphan too." She said close to his right antenna. "I know how it feels. No wonder you're so angry all the time."

Then she parted, and he merely stared at her, mouth agape in shock.

 _The audacity!_ Was what he was thinking.

She stood to her full height, waved at him, and then headed for the door. Zim stared after her. Still speechless, mouth still open.

 _The... the audacity!_

"See you maybe tomorrow, Zim? I have to check up on you. You owe me. See you later, and take care of yourself. You still look really unwell."

She closed the door.

He was left alone again, his eyes darting to the ice cream tub still on the floor.

 _The... the fucking audacity!_

Then, some two seconds later, his drugged mind suddenly caught on to something.

 _Did she... did she perform surgery? On me?_

' _Please hear me out! Don't you remember? You had something inside you! I got it out! You nearly died! I had to keep you warm to keep you from going into shock!'_

There seemed to be a heck of a lot he wasn't remembering.

Insecure, and hazy with drugs, he hugged his knees to his chest, and shook with fright.

xxx

As Dib was making his way back to the car outside the giant laboratory complex after seeing his father, and thinking of jamming a cigarette between his lips to relax for a beat before confronting a crazy senile Irken, he saw someone familiar standing by the main gates. He seemed to peer in Dib's direction and then he slunk away again, towards the small woodland bordering the car park. Dib took no more notice of it, got into his car, started the engine, and drove down the road, past the security barrier and down the lane that would lead to the main roads. He was only thirty yards down it when someone jumped out into the road. Dib slammed on the brakes, causing the tires to screech against the asphalt. "Jesus!" He had just avoided hitting the idiot. But when he looked up, he saw that it was Gary. He was wearing his brown jacket, and a crooked fedora. And his eyes were ablaze with anger.

"You." Gary said. "Get the fuck out of your car, you hypocrite!"

Dib stared at him through the windshield. There was no way he was getting out of his car. In fact, he pressed a button that locked all the car doors simultaneously. But he rolled down the window just a little so that Gary could hear his answer. "What are you doing here, Gary? You jumped in front of me! You want a death wish?"

"I want you to own up to what you did!" Gary pushed his hands up against the front passenger window. His eyes were as cold as ice.

Gary, being here, out of context, made little to no sense to Dib. He was still trying to work his head around it. It was just as well that Zim's paranoia was starting to rub off on him.

"Wait? Have... have you been following me?" He asked, peering at Gary through the gap in the window. His head had been full of thoughts, problems and ideas, that he hadn't paid particular attention to his surroundings. What if Gary had been following him from behind in his own car? Only to stop and park somewhere nearby while he visited his dad?

Gary ignored him. "I haven't forgotten. You might have, but not me! Then, it got me thinking. You know? And I realized it wasn't the first time you did it either!"

What the hell was this guy going on about? "Look, Gary, I gotta go. Whatever problems you have with me, they can wait at the office." He was about to roll his window back up when Gary moved effortlessly to the front of his car: blocking his exit.

 _That's okay._ Dib thought. _I can still drive around you, you crazy bastard._

He reversed back a little ways to angle his car around Gary. But Gary wasn't having it. By taking a few meagre steps to the right or left, he was able to block Dib again. Unless Dib could fly over him, he either had to drive over the curb and into the woods to get around him, or be stuck there until one of them died.

Dib was getting hot and angry now. So much so, that he undid his seatbelt, unlocked his doors and stepped out of the car. He had no time for this. Gir needed capturing, and Zim needed regular supervision and immediate aid. The last thing he needed right now was a quarrel with his colleague.

"Gary, what the hell are you doing? Get out of my way."

Gary was done with the niceties. He strolled right up to Dib and jabbed a finger into his chest. Usually a shy person, Dib would never dream of standing up to such an aggressive man. But all those years fighting with Zim had taught him many tricks, and given him the hard edge when it came to skirmishes. "You! You ruined everything for me!" Gary spat, his eyes wide and livid with rage. "Why'd you do it? You made me the laughing stock of the investigation team! And for what?"

Dib narrowed his eyes at him from behind his wide-rimmed glasses. Now he was beginning to grasp what this was about. Gary was still sore about that night when Dib had rescued Zim, and told the cops it was all a big hoax.

"There was no alien." He tried to say.

"Don't play dumb with me, thinking you're SO smart!" Gary poked him again, driving him a step back. "I called you, didn't I! I was the first to ring you up after I chased it! I still remember what you said that night!"

Dib frowned. What had he said that night? He had said a lot of things, and gone through about as many emotional traumas as any sane man could take.

"And what did I say?" He asked, daring Gary to say something believable, something with credit, when surely he had nothing!

But in that, Dib was wrong.

"You asked me if I ' _hurt him_.' Does that ring any little bells in that big head of yours?" Gary teased, driving him back another step by thrusting his hands against his chest. Dib's right heel struck the side of the curb.

Dread filled him like consuming fire. He tried not to let it show. "It was just a question. If there was indeed an 'alien' as you said, then it was important it wouldn't get hurt... in case we needed to study it while it was healthy. That's all. Now quit shoving me, and back off! This is harassment!" He threw Gary's hands away by shoving his arm between them.

Gary did not move forwards to reengage him, but he remained looking assertive and violent. "I don't believe you. You labelled it with a gender, calling it a 'him.' Like you were cornered about 'him' like you knew 'him.'"

"Don't be daft. You think I know an alien? You want me to call it up from a phone book?"

"Don't pretend you don't know." Gary whispered darkly, his eyes shadowed by the hood of his fedora. Even in the sunlight, it did nothing to relieve that darkness in his eyes. "That first call we had, up in those woods, with that woman screaming about an alien with red eyes. You covered up for it then as well, didn't you? Tricking me about fucking donuts. You said it was a kid playing Halloween tricks."

"That's right."

Gary's resentful eyes seemed to bleed into his. "I'm gonna find out what you're hiding, mark my words. I'm not going to let you ruin my life anymore! And when I find that alien, I'm going to kill it, understand? Just to spite you!"

"You'd kill the find of the century? Just to settle a grudge?" Dib shoved past him, and walked back to his car.

"If that's what it takes."

"Get some sleep, Gary. And stop embarrassing yourself. There was never any alien."

"There is, cuz I saw it! It's not yours, Dib! It's mine!"

Dib got in, shut the door and then locked them good and tight. This time, Gary did not step in front of his car, and he was able to drive away without anymore interruptions. Soon, Gary became a little lone figure in his rear-view mirror and then he was gone as Dib turned a corner down the lane. However, Gary remained a great presence in his mind that refused to be forgotten quite so easily.

And he naively thought the biggest problem of the year was getting Zim to his dad.

* * *

 **Dib07:** How about them apples? LOLOLOLO XXDXDBKJDBKBKDBGK


	28. Irken Consequences

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Okay, we're here, at this point in the story after so long. Well, it's the next chapter that's really good, but this is the catalyst.

Enough about that though, what I am really giddy about is once again the reader response. This story has now topped over 300 reviews. I HAVE never, ever received such stunning feedback in all my life here on ffn. I really like to think that this story really _is_ being enjoyed, and that it really _is_ memorable and fun. Why else has it received such an amazing response? I am overwhelmed as always; forever staggered every time I sit and think about it. I hope that, as the rest of the story unfolds, it will be just as good, and just as exciting. And I know there is still a lot more to be had. So here goes! Chapter 34 is here!

(P.S I am thinking about updating every other week. I have been pretty busy. I will try and update when I can guys! I love you all! Stay safe out there!)

* * *

 **ermahgerd**

Hahaha! It suuuure will! Trust me, I'll think you'll like what's coming next!

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

Dear Rhian, I am so, so happy to hear from you again. I have seen your feedback dropping in on my other stories that I haven't replied to yet, and during your brief period of absence I was a little worried. I was convincing myself that you were just busy, which you were, but another part of me thought that something might have happened to you, and I'm so, so glad that wasn't so. After all your poor sister has been having a rough time of it with her ankle (ouch ouch) and the kids! Bless them! And university is HARD work! No wonder you are SO swamped! It's bad enough me trying to keep things together and I don't even have a social life! Just work, more work and work! XD Anyway I am swelling with love and joy to hear from you again, finding you well if tired and swamped with life! No wonder you are feeling a bit ill!

A research project? Based on what? Maybe you could use evidence to bulk your work or use as a focus point, like a town census or something. And build it up from there. It depends what the subject is about.

Bless you, you are busy enough as it is and you didn't have to leave me with such an epic review! Which yes, I devoured every word! It gladdens me that you are enjoying it, but, and I am always convinced you are going to see a mistake in my work, or find something that doesn't quite gel! Haha! I know, I am forever paranoid I've really screwed something up somewhere. This story is just too big and I never had the nerve to submit the whole thing until I got pushed to do so! (best push of my life, I think). I've had root canal. It was scary. You were brave, going through that. The process is literally like, a 3 hour operation. And then there are the injections *queue the shuddering*

(Chapter 24)

Yeah, I think we all wanted to put our hands on Zim at that point, shake his shoulders and tell him to stop and that it's 'all in your head you silly senile old Irken!' XD That was probably Dib and Zim's darkest moment. Could you imagine, trying to hard to save someone, only to be a victim to their eternal paranoia? Zim is keeping better, not only accepting his fears, but conquering them little by little. The pain and the disorientation obviously does not help an insecure, trigger-happy Irken however, and if it wasn't for his own natural deterioration, I think he would have handled it smoothly before it went so out of control.

Zim breaking down like that was hard too. I empathise fully with you. I suffered deep depression not too long ago, and I have been treading very, very softly in those realms. Honestly, I was on so many drugs that I have lost years of my life. From 2013 to 2016. I have no idea what happened during that time in my own timeline. Those 4 years are a blank. I was very, very sick. And that sickness led to crippling depression. It was so bad I didn't even want to get out of bed in the mornings and I slept all afternoon like an old man. My brain was like mush too and I lost an incredible amount of weight. So trust me when I say I know how you feel. You feel like you are dying inside, and no one else can see it. It is terrifying.

(Chapter 25)

Gosh these characters like, swear too much don't they? Lol. I need to curb Dib's swearing, and all else, but I swear I can't control a certain mean old Irken lol. Once he scrambles out some words I tend to leave it. If I mess with him too much, I lose his spirited gusto I swear. XD And yes, those mean old Tallest! They certainly know how to mess with things from afar.

''But it's not as if their saints themselves. Look how many Irkens they've killed for fun, for wrong reasons and through their own incompetence. Definitely not angels this pair.''

It's true. The same goes for modern day politicians and tyrants. They think THEY know what's best for 'their' Empire/tyranny/rule/kingdom even if it means killing along the way to reach that goal. I think the Tallest are as bad as we are. They just have a greater reach, with more technology to play around with. Once they see themselves as superior to all others, they stop empathising with the rest of their own kind. It is awful.

''I do like the inclusion of the tallest actually knowing how to build or adapt technologies though. I mean they couldn't be that stupid or in charge without some knowledge.I also like this word you used in describing that one officer Irken serving drinks. Decorous. I've never heard that one before. You keep teaching me new words in your stories it seems.''

Thank you! I've had someone else say they've had to look words up after stumbling across something I have written! And I agree too, I like the fact that, when actually bothered, the Tallest can actually do something productive, once they stopped to eat and binge long enough lol.

Oh yes they were definite flashbacks to what Zim really did in Montana! You'll find out soon enough! And Zim is notoriously up to no good isn't he lol. He is just so angry at Dib still at that time that he finds it too hard to just let go.

I think all Zim wants to do is sleep. Which actually makes me really sad. I think that, if it wasn't for Gir and Dib's pushes to keep him going, he would just huddle up anywhere he'd find himself, collapse, sleep and die, happy to escape the strain of being perfect. And that is Zim's situation. He is pushing himself. For Dib as well as for Gir, and his own personal indoctrination to keep fighting until all life is drained. Give him an excuse to rest, and he will. Don't forget that Zim actually wants to die. He's tried it with his little uniform self-destruct devices because he knows he is compromised. And... I think... a part of him wants Gir to kill him. Is that too deep? Yeah. Too deep.

''It's such a shame though for Zim really to have all that weight of expectations and training on his shoulders about what he can and cannot be seen doing as a solider. It's made it all the more difficult for him to except help and he could have gotten better a lot earlier too.''

EXACTLY! Damn yes! So true! Praise be! He will push himself to the end. Head up high. Until he faints. That's just the way he is.

Haha yes the professor MUST be old! In his 50's, I'd imagine. Another 15 years and he might be able to retire! XD Zim's gonna love being fiddled around with!

(Chapter 26)

Thank you complimenting me about the name Vixen, and the description of Dib's father's lab! Yes, I can't believe he has to make an appointment with his OWN dad as well! And not just that, but fit Zim in with an appointment as well. Holy moly! I enjoyed writing these fresh scenes, and Dib actually stepping foot in the real world, away from Zim for a beat or two and having some clear reflection.

''But what's this? Having second thoughts Dib about possibly making Zim a little too well?''

Oooh yes! Dib's like; 'hang on a fudging second there! He's an evil space monster! How can I ever truly trust him?' Exactly, Dib. Exactly. Would the trade off be worth it?

''Once again you've added in something to make us readers wonder just who knows who and what in this story. Still it would not surprise me that they knew each other. I bet Zim approached the professor at some point for some reason. Only time, and you will tells just what's going on.''

Oh man this bit was really good! Everyone was trying to guess, which I loved! I felt like I was in a debate! A hot debate! I think one of my fav reviewers has got it at once. And I'm not all that surprised they got it! It brought tears to my eyes at my joy and love for sharing these experiences through words, and happy in the knowledge that they were so excited at figuring it out. I can't say anything more, and people may not like the idea, but I have built so much on my theories that are so far paying off.

''It would amuse me greatly if Dib ends up having to carry or strap Zim to that skateboard in order to get him to the lab. I remember Zim getting carted around like that before earlier on in the story when Dib took Zim to see his new house. That was both adorable and amusing.''

I think Zim's mortal enemy is that skateboard. That's IF he hasn't chopped it all up into firewood!

''Will Dib get a cute new coat for Zim to wear?''

Ah. A mistake in my work! Yes, Zim has like a really lovely, soft fluffy winter coat Dib got him one Christmas. I think it was blue or pink. And I forgot! He's cute and all wearing Dib's mangled old trench coat for now but I FORGOT!

''And that vial! Seriously, just what does it do other than look pretty. Please tell us now.''

Lol. Look pretty. I think everything Zim makes or owns looks pretty! So it goes with his fashion sense, however incredulous! XD I know, I AM THE ULTIMATE MEANIE! Hahaha! Watch this space! XD I actually sometimes just wanted Dib to shove it in Zim's face and DEMAND that the Irken tell him. But things are always happening too quickly for these two, and they never got a chance to actually discuss it properly. But then again, it sure makes it more dramatic for later *wink wink*

(Chapter 27)

'' I would have thought that Zim would have known that something was inside his wounded body, causing an infection but it seems he did not. I was sure people noticed these sort of things. I always noticed if I had a small stone or anything in a cut knee when I got one. Maybe it just depends on the wound and person I guess.''

Ah yes. THAT. Okay, you are going to need to bear with me on this. It's his PAK. It's his ultimate strength and his ultimate weakness. His PAK did everything it could to cover it up. If his PAK can't fix it, it rejuvenates the host. Hides it. (is there a word for that? I can't think of it right now). Anyway, if his PAK had been healthy enough it might have purged OUT the metal, like a splinter in the skin, which sometimes our bodies do. But it couldn't rectify the situation, it just increased the strain on Zim's vitals, and the PAK gave him painkillers and all the rest until the PAK ran dry. Okay, I think it's my bad I didn't make this clear enough. Maybe I had left too much freedom for the audience to elaborate/speculate, I don't know. But that's the reason. Infection set in, big time, and again the PAK tried to fight it. It just made Zim even sicker. So I hope that clears it up a little bit. :)

''Awww Zim still wearing his little snuggly PJ's and the patchwork coat. I just love the idea of Zim running around in a cute pink onesie. And he sleeps like an old person too or me if I'm sick but without the wheezing or snoring. All this talk of Zim's house has me wondering things like what his toothbrush looks like or underwear. In a non perverted manner that is. Well most of the time…..''

Aww what a cute abbreviation/term for it: patchwork coat! OMG I love you! That is adorable! Shame I can't like, tweak it in the story now because that is EXACTLY what it is! I may change bits ahead of time while he is wearing it, but that won't be for much longer now nooooo! It's so cute! I know right! He sleeps like such an old man! Whistling away as he breathes. I've never written characters snoring, Zim is my only one. I have always imagined him with these cute, shrill, nasally snores with some squeaks thrown in. XD And no it's not weird at all, wondering what other homely, earthly things Zim uses and keeps, such as toothbrushes and underwear. I am UGH SO HAPPY this story evokes these questions and feelings in you. I have hopefully made Zim quite comfortable in a livable home and feels truly... well... lived in. Luckily he doesn't need to brush his teeth. (I can't go all scientific on you now, I don't wanna bore you lol) but he is so lucky his teeth are so healthy!

''Zim's like a working mum or well any single working parent really with an attention seeking, hyper child. Read me stories, see if there's monsters under my bed, it's scary outside can I sleep with you? Ah I remember this all from just a few years back when my sisters children were smaller and it was a never ending barrage of questions and wants. And all Zim wants to do is maybe cause a little havoc. A power outage here, a few burst dams there. He just can't catch a break it would seem.''

I LOVE Zim's reluctant parenting. It reminds me that yes, he can be a father if he puts his mind to it, and shelves his destructive weapons for at least one day. He does deserve to relax himself, but he is so twisted up in his training, and directive that he looks after Gir in a reserved state. And he sure does need a catch a break! I think it's cute, going behind the scenes and seeing just what these two get up to, and how really busy Zim is, even when he isn't chasing Dib up the block. There's always something he's doing, and Gir is happy to help in his own sweet ways! I loved writing that story book part! Regretfully I wish there was more between them.

''Ahhh Clara I knew you would come back to Zim and I am glad that she did Good! It means nobody's got her and I mean really how could she not after holding him in her arms like that after saving his life. That and Zim is utterly adorable. She really shines as a character in this chapter showing great understanding and perseverance when it comes to Zim's insecure nature and mistrusting of humans. I mean if Zim wasn't in such bad shape and on drugs he probably would have done some serious damage to her. Is she treating him in a manner like one would an injured child and animal by being small, offering treats and emanating a calm aura? It seemed like it to me. Still, it seems that despite Clara's friendly nature, Zim is having none of it. Hopefully he'll get a little friendlier towards her if Dib is perhaps around at the same time. Though I still think she'll turn up to see Zim regardless of what Dib says.''

Clara is the complete opposite of Zim. Trusting. Loving. Shy. Nervous. Soothing and calm. It's just as well she isn't forward going or Zim may have not been so tolerant. And yes, after saving his life and holding him (once you hold an animal or a child you automatically start to bond with them) there was no way she could keep herself away any longer. And I'd hate to think that yes, Zim may have hurt her like you said he would. But impersonally, like in that nasty manner in which he invaded Dib's body in a nanoship just to delete part of his memory where he hid a certain disk. For self-preservation. Not because he wants to, but because he feels like he has to protect himself. Luckily that didn't happen, and Zim didn't hurt her. Instead her security and calmness overthrew him, pushing on his iron defences. It is unknown at this point if Zim will ever succumb to her. Only the future will reveal it! *wink wink* (oh gods you are gonna hate me for what I will soon do to Zim and Clara - and that's okay, I still hate myself for writing it).

''Seriously a coat and fedora? Is Gary trying to look like a private investigator from the 1950's? But what a pest!''

LOLOL! I know right! XD That made me genuinely laugh!

''This is maybe going to cause some trouble for Dib and Zim. Possibly Clara as well. I hope he doesn't manage to get a hold of Zim and say shoot him or something equally just as debilitating. Definitely not the sort of attention any of the three need right now.''

Zim would be like: 'yeah, come at me bro!' And kill Gary. Haha! Oh that would be fun to write! You keep making me laugh! It's great! There is SO MUCH drama going on in this story! Where's it all coming from? XDXD

''All in all, I must say that this story is turning out to be the best invader Zim fanfic that I have ever read. No joke! I have read many stories from the fandom over the years, concerning all sorts of ideas and representations of the characters, and Some are very good stories but none have ever touched me in the same way that yours does. You've got the characters personalities down perfectly and have expanded upon them in a manner that I would say is plausible if they were going to be seen in a more mature light. Zim still being a half wild, wilful but needed and dependent little busybody, now with a foul mouth and a touch of weary, semi-parentalness/ friendship/ sort of enemyness towards Dib (and Gir's boss mum/dad) is just how I see him being. Dibs come along way and has grown into an understanding, dependable person who has gone out of his way for someone who could very well have destroyed everything he held dear and made friends with him. Still a bit of a frailty cat and nosey as hell but overall he has still retained what made him the character we know. I could go on forever but my point is that if Invader Zim was made into another, more mature cartoon series with them all being 20 years older, I could see the characters being shown like how you portray them. And not many writers can take someone else's creations and do that. (Here's looking at you Peter Jackson and your Hobbit movies. Or you Micheal Bay and what you're doing to Transformers.)''

Oh what can I say? I am always made speechless by your comments, and endearing comments made by my best fans, readers and friends. I really hope you mean that, and that this humble story can hold its own, and that I have been able to do things right. I have loved writing this story every minute, every word, every sentence. And to read your cherished thoughts is very freeing. I'm proud to think that this story is as good as you say it is. I am sure there will be others out there, better than mine. Now, or later, and I'm happy because I have contributed. I have had my turn. And had my fun. I do love this maturer take on Invader Zim as well. These characters have come a long way, enriched by the history between them, history we are still learning about, while the future remains uncertain. The fact that you admire me for getting the characters so true to their respective natures is rewarding. Like receiving an honour. Heh, I wish oh wish I could franchise this somehow! Haha! Oh well. It's been a great project for me. And every time I submit a new chapter, I revisit it and enjoy reading your thoughts.

''Overall I love this story very much and now that I have got my self back on track with my studies and stuff, plan to make sure I take the time to read and review any stories you put up on a timely basis. So I really can't wait for the next chapter to go up. Any time this week by any chance ?it would be very nice if does go up soon.''

I am on cloud 9 that you've said that. I thought my updates were too... I dunno... too much? Too quickly? And I have been feeling guilty having you try so hard to catch up. I really do. So much so that I've delayed my other updates, and keeping Saving Zim to a fortnightly update. Because I love these chats. And I don't want you overworked and pressed for time like you are already.

''I've noticed you have some other stories in the works too by the names of Impact and Mercy. Those, from the descriptions given, look awfully interesting. (Hint hint) Still wanting to read that Return to Oz story of yours as well. You couldn't possibly consider putting it up at some point could you? Plllleeeaaassssseeeee!''

You like picking out the darker ones, don't you? LOL! Saving Zim is getting tamer every day while I write even darker, more mature themes ever further. XD Return to OZ has its flaws, and though I think it's a fun read, it's in book form. I do have the original copy saved but it's too many chapters before I retire! I know! What to do? WHAT TO DO? I'm pleased you still want more! And that I have given you that hunger! XD

* * *

 **CHAPTER 28 (34): Irken Consequences**

Dib pulled up outside Zim's home. It was late afternoon now but the sunlight was still strong and warm. The forecast predicted a snow storm on the radio station, but as Dib fetched a look skyward, he failed to believe in the prediction.

He overlooked the passing cars with some unprecedented dismay. What colour car did Gary drive exactly? Did he even have a car? Or was it a motorbike? He did not see him in passing, as many cars or vans drove past his parked Toyota, but he couldn't be sure.

Flicking out a used cigarette butt, he stepped from the car, shut the door and walked down Zim's lawn path to his front door. He dreaded passing on the news the professor had left him with, like a bitter pill he had to take, and he envisioned the obvious outcome. He had planned to take Zim to him, to have a newish PAK device magically installed to bypass all of Zim's health issues. But not prior. As a human, seeing a doctor was bad enough, but for Zim to overcome his own fears was just going to be impossible. At high school, Zim struggled to ask for an eraser, much less ask for help from his father for something as serious as his PAK. Christ, Zim didn't even let the stethoscope come ANYWHERE near him during their biology lesson in school! Dib may well have been trying to use a dagger to listen with.

And holy of holies if Zim ever found out about Clara's involvement during his surgery. From all these building complications, he absolutely guaranteed that Zim was going to go: 'ah fuck this', hop into his Voot, and fly away from it all.

As for Gary well, he didn't matter. He was crazy, and absorbed in defeat.

He rang the doorbell, wondering if Zim was even able to walk, much less answer it. But after about two minutes of waiting, the door clicked open and Zim peered out with his human disguise on. He always that this icy glance, as if expecting him to arrive covered in spy devices whilst in the company of men in white coats. He was pleased to see that Dib was alone.

"Take off your shoes." Zim requested, drawing back to allow the human entry.

Dib entered, kicking off his boots and looking around. Gir had obviously not returned. The TV was on, but there was no robot watching it.

"Your Clara was here." Zim said croakily as he closed the door behind him.

"She was?" That was news to him. BAD news, surely? What the hell? He had explicitly told her to _stay_ away until things cooled off!

"Yes." Zim answer was a weary one. He looked exhausted.

"Where's she gone now?"

Zim pushed him against his thighs, and the force, though weak, was strong enough to pitch Dib against the wall.

"Hey!" The investigator snapped, scrambling for balance. Zim's cold eyes were on him like hooks.

"You little stink!" Zim hollered into a shrill, creaky wail. "I TRUSTED YOU! You told Clara everything! You had her digging around inside of me! And you didn't TELL ME!"

The Irken threw a fist against the wall, by Dib's knee. His little punch left a nice dent in the plaster.

Dib grabbed Zim's shoulders, forcing him to look up into his eyes to hopefully see the sincerity there. "You know why I didn't tell you, Zim? Because you are your own worst enemy! Yeah, I could have told you. And you would have murdered me with your plasma gun... thing! And for what? I have spent the entirety of the month looking after you and trying to build a relationship at the same time! And yeah, Clara knows! She likes you, and it scares me that she likes you. You are a monster, perpetually engrossed in your own gains, your own selfish desires! What will happen when my dad fixes you, huh? Huh? Will you forgive? Will you back down and accept the reality of your life here, on Earth? Of course you won't. You'll go back to your evil ways. You aren't shackled in human weakness and guilt and regret, as I was. As I am."

Zim looked like he had just been shunted down a deep hole; he was wide-eyed, his angry grimace fading to a gaping one steeped with incredulity. Perhaps, Dib thought, he had homed in on a truth, or he had missed it entirely. Zim was a keeper of his own ambitions, but these ambitions had been robbed from him, and he had had to deal with his shortening existence. Had he planned for Dib's interventions? Or had he not?

Zim clearly did not want to clarify what Dib had just said, and did not even want to admit to anyone of the things his human friend had brought up. Instead, he said with some sulkiness: "You must take me to Gir. He's all I care about now."

Dib released his shoulders, but Zim still looked angry. He had stopped looking at him, but he was thinking, and thinking hard.

He was dropping the subject of Clara way too easily.

"Wait a sec. My father took the schematics and says he'll do it! I made up some stupid story about your PAK being made by some rival company. You know, to throw him off the scent? I don't think he realizes its alien at all."

"And th-that's all?"

"Well, there was a _slight_ complication. Just a tinsy, winsy one."

"A... a complication?"

Dib felt like he was about to trigger a grenade - again. The resulting explosion was not going to be very pretty. "Yeah. He uh... wants to see you before he can make any repairs."

Zim started to breathe faster. The grenade had been thrown. All Dib had to do was wait for the consequential eruption. "Oh no! No, no! I didn't shake on _that_ deal!"

"You didn't shake at all!" Dib cried back, angry.

"It's... it's a sordid trick is what it is! Zim will not fall for such an obvious ploy! I'll fight! I'll fight you both! I'll... I'LL...!"

"Zim! It'll be like seeing the doctor! He'll take a look at you, and your PAK scientifically!"

He could literally see the panic flare up in the Irken's eyes as if he had the men in white coats with him now. "I will NOT fall for it! This was your strategy all along! YOURS! NOT MINE!"

"Zim, we've already been through this! I am _not_ tricking you!"

"Yes, and then what? Your pathetic parent will summon legions of men with pointy things!"

 _Dear God. Here we go again._ Dib tried to keep calm. It was never easy, when his Irken was so much like a firework. "I'll handle it. He's already agreed anyway. All you've got to do is show up. Tomorrow at dawn."

"You don't even know if it will work! This idea of yours is fucking stupid!"

His attempt to stay calm was failing. "Do you have a better idea? Because I'm all out of grand schemes if it hasn't twigged by now! You have a deus ex machina hanging around? Then I suggest you dust it off and use it!"

Zim curled up slightly as he coughed and coughed, one hand cupped around his mouth, the other pressing against his sternum.

"What about your leaders?" Dib asked a little more softly. "Can't they do something for you? I'm sure they do PAK repairs all the time!"

"O-of course they do!" He wheezed weakly. "Why wouldn't they?"

"So, did you contact them?"

"Yes!"

"And?"

"I'm... I'm waiting! An invader must be patient! The Tallest understand the great urgency – the very importance! But..." He croaked, "but the upgrades are... in high demand! Only the elitist of the elite get their superior upgrades in time. No doubt I will as well. I... I just need to w-wait."

"Zim," he wanted to kneel before him, and appeal, but he wasn't sure how the invader would react to such pleas, "you can't wait! You need help now! If it wasn't for your squeedly thing getting infected, you'd probably be able to tough it out for a few weeks, but it's taken too much out of you! Judging by your vitals, we don't have long."

"Don't poison me with your sm-smelly little lies!"

"They are not lies, Zim! Open your eyes! You need my father's help!"

"I'm f-fine!"

"Oh, so you're a doctor now, are you Zim?"

The Irken looked sullen. "Why are you doing all this for me? If this isn't a trick, than I am blind to your true intentions. Tell me! Or is it because you... you uh... you uhhh... are f-f-f..." He drawled into the word, but it was like he just couldn't say it.

"Say it." Dib said, crossing his arms. But inside, he was smiling a little.

"Because you and I... are... are... Irk Dib, this hurts!"

"Sure it does, Fudgekin."

"F-Friennnnds..." He spat out at last.

"That's right."

Zim fell silent, obviously thinking or planning or hating. At last he croaked: "What will... what will he... he d-do t-to me?"

This seemed to be the bottom line of his fear. To be touched, to be examined. He did not seem to remember Dib looking after him at all, or if he did, he was keeping it to himself, along with everything else he shelved in dislike.

Dib decided to sit down on the couch, keeping a fair gap between them. Zim joined him, happy to rest his legs. He half expected the proximity to be too close, but Zim did not move or complain.

"He's a great scientist and he's good in biology as well. I suspect he'll just have a look at you, and your PAK to determine exactly what needs doing."

Zim mumbled out a few quiet: "Om mi gods..."

"He also told me to say this to you, though I have no idea what it means. He said: baloney." He watched Zim closely for a clue as to why this might mean something to the enigmatic Irken. What was even stranger, was that Zim and Prof. Membrane had nothing to do with each other, so why this baffling password? He wanted to laugh at the thought of these two having secret meetings.

If pigs could fly.

Zim turned and looked at him from his human contacts. "Oh he HAD to bring that up, didn't he? Out of all the humans on this miserable little, little Earth, your father is the most insane." He said quite frankly. "Very well then. I will see to this... professor of yours, as soon as we capture and detain Gir. But only out of the favour he once did. I can always change my mind."

Dib had to stare back, completely puzzled. The seemingly random word had worked. It was no joke planted by his father after all.

 _What do you know, Zim, that I don't?_

He wanted to put this question forward, when Zim suddenly left the couch, always on a mission. He tossed the Absolute back in Dib's direction. It landed on his leg.

Adjusting his wig again over his antennae, Zim limped towards the door, clutching Dib's old coat close to him as he readied to brace himself against the March winds.

He was done waiting.

x

Using the skills he had developed as a paranormal investigator, Dib stuffed the Absolute into his back pocket and started inspecting the grass and mud for any Gir-tracks. Some of the snow that hadn't entirely melted still hugged the shadows, and offered potential signs. Dib examined all these, happy when he came to the conclusion that Gir had indeed come out into the open, and appeared to be heading down West Street. Zim followed slowly, wheezing in the chilly morning air. Dib wanted to slow down for him, but was against the idea. The quicker he found Gir, the quicker they could return, and the quicker he could get Zim the help he needed.

The birds were out singing, and a few people passed him by. They gave him brief, odd looks as they went, only to stare at the green human trying to keep up with him.

"He probably w-went to some taco stand! Or MacMeaties!" Zim coughed, forcing himself forwards. Each step he managed was a victory.

"What's the plan, when we do find him, and he's... normal?" Dib asked, still paying attention to the mud and snow.

"Well, I don't hear any s-screaming of humans!"

"You're half deaf. But yeah, I don't either." As he walked, he came to a brief stop and added: "Look. I'll have you sit up on my shoulders. Like before. It's not the same as carrying you, and you get to rest at the same time."

Zim stopped too, looking disconcerted. "Dib... D-Dib... pass me one of those syringes! Now!"

"What? Your... rin-ah?" He asked, pronouncing it wrongly.

"Yes, yes! Hurry!"

Dib dipped into his coat pocket and produced one of the small, shiny Irken syringes with strange symbols all over it. It was oddly colourful too. Zim managed to reach up to snatch it from his hand before sinking the tip into his neck to dispense the drug into his bloodstream. Then he sighed and slung the now empty casing into the nearest trash can.

Dib couldn't keep ignoring these drug binges. He seemed to be hitting the stuff pretty hard. "How much of that have you been having? You should slow down."

"Leave it. I can have what I w-want."

"Don't go mad on the stuff, Zim."

Soon they came across a trail of litter. Though trash was commonplace in the streets of Lincoln, this particular trash pile was just too obvious, and so Dib followed it, sure that it had to be from Gir. He glanced over his shoulder occasionally, keeping a mental note of how far away Zim was, but the gap between them was getting longer and longer. He wished the Irken would just sit this one out, but it looked like he wasn't having it.

Half a mile from Zim's base, and there was still no sign of the robot. Dib was thankful to be spending time outside, regardless. Being cooped up in the base was too much. He was no insect. He was a human being who enjoyed fresh air and the outdoors. Zim liked dark hovels where he could curl up in safety and warmth.

They came to the first MacMeaties across the road. While Zim rested outside, panting and gasping, Dib went into the building and asked the staff members if they had seen a little robot or green dog waltz into the building and make an order.

"Um, yeah. Someone did come in with that ur... description about an hour ago." Said the man manning the till. He was covered in old and fresh grease stains. The stink of burgers was strong, and it actually made Dib feel faint with hunger. "He um... wanted about one hundred cheese burgers and twelve onion rings. I asked him if he wanted classic or diet poop with that. He said he was full of poop already."

"Didn't you think it was a little odd? A dog making an order at MacMeaties?" Dib asked, though he wasn't that surprised. Most people ignored the weird and the obvious because they were just too stupid.

"It was a robot. Not a dog." Said the man. "I thought someone had made him, ya know? Made him to... I dunno. Order... burgers?"

Dib sighed. It was a lead. "You know which way he went?"

"Um, yeah. I saw him heading over to the park. Carrying all that food. Honestly, I thought it was a female-bot. Sounded like it. Is it for sale? I'd like to buy it. I want something that'll bring me a hundred burgers."

"Uh, thanks for the info, but no, it's not for sale." He took a look around and decided to order a little something. "Can I get two cups of coffee please?"

x

"Here you go, Fudgekin. It might help you feel a little better." He passed Zim the Styrofoam carton of coffee. The Irken had sat down on the sidewalk, which was unusual. Zim hated everything in the human world, be it toilets, sidewalks, city curbs or potholes, because to him they were ALL dirty. And here he was, overcome with pain and exhaustion to stand, much less care about common human dirt. Even so, he accepted the coffee with a polite 'thank you' and held it close to his chest to help keep warm. He was still wearing his thermals and Dib's jacket, which kept him from the worst of the chill, but they were still essentially his pyjamas and they weren't made out of the same hardy material as his military uniform.

Dib sat down beside him as people walked in and out of MacMeaties. "I'll bring the car round," he said, "and take you home."

"N-NO!" Zim hissed hoarsely. "This is my mission too! I must detain that blasted S.I.R unit, no matter what!"

Dib exhaled slowly, feeling indecisive. How long had it been since he'd removed 'Gir's thumb' from his spooch? Twenty hours? More? Time seemed different inside Zim's base. How many days had he lost down there? As he worked in alien clutter? How many days of work had he missed? How many dawns and sunsets? Zim was much too fragile to be moving. The glue to seal his side was still recent.

"It's good news." Dib said after he took a sip from the coffee. It tasted quite bland, but the heat of it was more than welcomed. "Gir was here, only an hour ago. He ordered lots of food, so I assume he had money with him."

"An hour ago? He c-could be anywhere! That annoying little robot!"

"I doubt he'll go far. In truth I have a notion he'll be coming back home again."

"Humph!" And Zim drank down some of the coffee, only to wince from the hotness of it. But he continued swallowing it down anyway.

Dib was tempted to do something unimaginably cruel, and that was to get up and run away from Zim. That way he'd lose the Irken so he could find Gir on his own. He'd be twice as fast and Zim wouldn't have to keep pushing himself. BUT as much as that might work, Zim would likely get really upset.

 _I could carry him._

He looked down at Zim, and wondered if the Irken would tolerate it. Dib even reached over and went to lift his legs up, ready to deposit him in his lap so that he could stand up with him, when Zim viciously went to claw him.

"Don't touch me!" He yelped.

Dib pulled away, groaning in frustration. He tried something else. Something he had wanted to tell him for a really long, long time. He wasn't sure if it was appropriate, but they might never get another calm moment between them. "Zim. I'm engaged now."

"What... what does that mean? Are you occupied with something?"

"No, no. It's like a ceremonial bonding of two people. Clara and me. We're engaged."

Zim did not seem to fully understand what it meant exactly, which was probably normal for a creature that had no knowledge or experience of marriages and religion. Zim frowned; looking serious as if Dib had just said something incriminating.

"We're romantically... together." Dib tried again, trying to simplify it for him. He wasn't sure how much of a shock this was going to be, or if Zim could ever actually comprehend it. He had wanted to tell him all this earlier besides.

"For b-breeding?" Zim tried again, trying to understand.

Dib shook his head; even Zim was quite possibly right in the innocence of the question. "We're a couple. And we might be producing children one day, who knows? What do you think of that?"

Zim snarled, looking disgusted. "Smeets?"

"No, not smeets. Human babies."

Zim looked even more disgusted, so much so, that it made Dib laugh.

Laughter felt refreshingly good.

Regardless, Zim did not look terribly affected by this bit of news, probably because it didn't concern him right now. But sooner or later, it would.

"Hey," Dib started, thinking of changing the tone to something even lighter. "Remember that day you rang me up... from Montana, was it?"

Zim sipped from his coffee before huddling it to his chest again. "Mon-Tanna?"

"Yeah? It was during one of the biggest snow storms we ever had. You made me drive hundreds of miles, just to rescue you. You lost your Voot. Don't you remember? You were still wearing the braces back then. When I got to you, you were frozen solid!" And he laughed.

"What happened to my Voot again?"

Dib shrugged, still smiling _. Oh Zim. You are so senile now_. "The same thing that usually happens: you screwed up, and Gir decided to steal your ship, leaving you stranded."

"I don't WANT to remember that!" Zim snorted.

"Ah. Good times." And Dib brushed a tear from the laughter.

He waited for Zim to finish his coffee, long after he'd drunk all his. Then they were up again, and traversing the streets, heading for the public park. Luck seemed to be in their favour. Dib caught sight of something metallic on the grass, and ducked low behind a bush, new hope stirring inside him. As he looked, he could clearly see a shiny little robot chomping down on the last of his burgers. Around him were lots of old, greasy burger wrappers and onion ring boxes.

Zim weakly limped up to join him, and sat down in measurable relief.

"He's there! Eating burgers!" Dib said keenly, "This is it! And he doesn't look like he's dangerous at all!"

"What colour are his e-eyes?" Zim croaked, looking at his human from his contact lenses.

"That lightish blue colour!"

"He could switch at any time. I do not yet know what the trigger is. It could be something said, or a certain movement. If there even IS a trigger."

"You lie low." Dib acknowledged. "I'll handle this."

"Wait...!"

But Dib was already standing, and left the thorny bush at a casual, but quickened walk. Gir was paying no attention. His mouth was drooling with grease, cheese and tomato sauce. He waffled down each burger at an impossible speed and gave out a loud burp. He was all alone, out on the grass, covered in tatty food remains. Dib, not bothering to hide or use stealth, came right over to him, one hand hovering close to the Absolute.

"Hey, Gir. What are you doing way out here?" He wasn't going to mention Zim, or the very wound the robot had caused on his arm.

"Eating!" Gir cried happily, wiggling his tongue over his lips to savour the sauce running down his metal chin.

He had long decided that confrontation would get him nowhere, and a more subtle approach was in order. "You wanna come home and eat in front of the TV?"

"Can I have sum' dessert?" He asked. "I like donuuuts and ice tarts! They dance in my tummy!"

"Yeah, you can have those." He said, not having the slightest clue as to what 'ice tarts' were. "You wanna come with me?"

"Okay!" He saluted and stood up. Burger wrappers scampered about him like autumn leaves.

"You lead the way!" He offered, gesturing towards home.

Gir seemed happy with this arrangement and started walking drunkenly in the right direction. By now Zim had left the bush, and stood crooked as if his back was crippled, one hand stationed as always on his chest wall. Gir stopped mere feet away from him and only then did Dib feel his calm breaking open like an eggshell.

"Yous look poorly." Gir exclaimed, looking Zim up and down, "I think yous need a doctor!"

Zim merely stared at his sentient robot, looking insecure. Dib was behind the robot in the next moment, and was moving him on with a light shove. "Keep it moving Gir, if you want those ice tarts. If we're not back home in twenty minutes, I'll eat them all for you."

Zim looked like he had just weathered a tornado, and survived. Then he turned and followed, taking up the rear.

Gir was walking along quite happily, and though Dib didn't want to jinx anything, he was positive they'd make it back without incident. Even Zim, foreseeing the very same possibilities, relaxed as well.

It was hard to tell exactly what went wrong. If Dib looked back on it, and watched the scene frame by frame, he still would have been clueless as to what triggered Gir. Maybe it was that extra step he took and he felt his car keys jangle loudly in his pocket, or maybe it was because Zim barked with wet coughs. It might even have been that extra buffet of cold, late winter wind, or a car passing by them at speed. For when Gir turned to assess them from cold optic eyes, the eyes were that very same red. His casual, happy-go-lucky demeanour melted into murderous indifference. Dib was pretty sure these switches were happening faster each time, but he couldn't be sure. If he had analyzed the problem earlier, he might have understood the pattern a bit better, if indeed there _was_ a pattern.

Zim noticed this switch immediately too, despite the pain he was in. All three of them stopped moving at the park's threshold.

Dib wasn't sure what to do.

"Gir," Zim tried to say in a commanding voice, but his hoarseness was terrible, "stand down. There are no threats here. We are on a very important mission. Do not fuck it up for me n-now!"

Dib slowly began to reach for the Absolute.

Gir looked so insanely serious, it was terrifying. "You do not give me orders! You have been compromised and are to be destroyed!" He swung an arm up, aiming for the Irken. Dib foresaw the outcome, and would not stand for it.

Because there was no time to do anything else, Dib boldly stepped between them just as Gir fired a shot of molten plasma. It was over quickly, becoming the shield that he was. Pain filled him in one black thunderclap, and a moment of regret filled his singular moment of draining thought. Then Dib's world fell to cinder and darkness, and in that eternal damnation of black, his slipping consciousness shortly heard the most heart wrenching screams he had ever heard an Irken make.


	29. My Dark Place

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 _In this chapter, there is a TINY reference to the INVADER ZIM episode: The Wettening._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I'd like to put in a little dedication for **BirdNerd03** (it's her birthday today) and I hope you are having a fab, FAB day that rocks! Another year older, another year wiser. Here's to you. ^^ (and I hope you get some awesome gifts)

Also, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to **Aecoris.** Actually, ALL my reviewers deserve all my love and praise. Because without you, there'd be no story. No enjoyment in updating. And **Aecoris,** welcome. Weclome to the madness! XD You are further proof that this story is being thoroughly loved. I had not expected such a delightful response. I only hope that this story will continue to relive the show for you in its own way, and that, by reading this, you can re-experience the joy of the show as if, in a way, it never ended, and as a result, they all got a little older. ^^

* * *

 **ermahgerd**

Yes. Yes I did *facepalms in shame*

 **oh. no**

I bet you were upset. I think I kinda buried everyone in grief. Thing is, I saw this coming a long way off, and left my readers with the fallout. It hurt me so much to upload that chapter, and this one! And the one after! Etc! *drinks sherry until the pain floats away*

 **Weevmo**

Hi there Weevmo! I know right, it started off quite charming, allowing us to see an unguarded moment between Zim and Gir and what life was generally like for a busy Irken trying to juggle everything at once. And then it got quite dark again quite quickly! Zim has paid the ultimate price, forestalling all harm from Gir, and using every protocol to protect him. As I was writing it, I saw Zim having it no other way. And then it really, REALLY backfired. Zim failed to see this outcome, so sure was he, thinking he had it all 'covered.' And now all control is crumbling away from him. First in bits and pieces and now in huge chunks. Gosh, I am so cruel. XD I'm delighted you still have time to read this, busy as you are, as we all are! This month has certainly been a challenge to try and keep updating! Thanks for your review, I bet that chapter was shocking! XD No one's throwing rocks at me yet! *battens down the hatches anyway*

 **yikes**

Shocker, eh? Lol. Dib man. He just had to get in the way, didn't he? Lol. This story would have been 15 chapters shorter if he had just kept his distance! XD

 **moops**

Gary. He holds grudges. Like Zim. Lol. Someone should stick them in a room together and see what happens. XD

* * *

 **CHAPTER 29 (35): My Dark Place**

"Gir," Zim had barked, trying to reinstate a superior authority that was ever so much a fleeting thing now when he was quite clearly being succumbed by his own PAK, "stand down. There are no threats here. We are on a very important mission. Do not fuck it up for me n-now!" He knew this moment was crucial. So far he had never got through to Gir once his S.I.R unit was 'more insane' than was regular. But it was worth a try. After all, authority was all Zim had left.

In his periphery, he saw that Dib was reaching for the weapon tucked in the waistband of his pants like a cowboy. He did not want Gir hurt, but if he really had no choice, then he had to let it happen. He noted that he was being too sentimental – too emotional, and he wanted nothing better than to be the cold apathetic machine the Empire had fashioned him to be.

Gir did not twitch, or even look like he was listening. His programming was already made up. "You do not give me orders! You have been compromised and are to be destroyed!"

As he swung an arm up to blast him, Zim thankfully closed his eyes, hoping the end would be a quick, painless exit. It was every Irken's desire to die swiftly in battle, and if this was his final battlefield, then so be it.

But his ultimate request was not met.

x

 _"Poor little Zim, all that alien power and brought down by a little Earthly water! Pretty obvious who the superior being is here!"_

Dib's taunting was like a loud projection of impudent hate. It knocked against the Irken's mental stamina like a hammer did to a nail. Zim heard every spoken syllable through the holographic transmitter he had so casually planted on the ground by the school yard: the very transmitter that had thrown up a mirror image of himself as a decoy. But Dib's shameless taunting was nothing new. The human had just discovered a big weakness that was all. Nothing to really accost such an illogical reaction born of emotion. But it had riled Zim up, like nothing much had before, and there had been a sudden, irrational desire to pull out the big guns and drown not just his child tormenter but the whole city. He'd drown them all. Ms. Bitters. The children. The neighbours and all their little furry pets and gardens and homes and cars and all that irritated him. When he was irresolutely shoved into the next level of combat; the next unplanned stage of a battlefield, he had to go on instinct. Had to act. Or drown.

Now his sights were set. On Gir.

x

A hot molten iridescent blue descended; something deadly being so uncouthly beautiful. And then it was over. Zim opened his eyes to find Dib lying there on the grass. Just lying there. Eyes closed behind glasses that now lay at a crooked angle across the bridge of his nose. Something red began to furl outwards on the human's side, through his light, blue shirt. It started off small, like a blot no bigger than a marble. Then the redness grew, devouring the fabric of the human's shirt. Beneath him also, the grass took on a sickly red stain.

It took many a languishing moment for the Irken to register this.

Then Zim flew forwards, his claws landing on Dib's body. "No! Nooo! No, no no! Get up! Get up now! I didn't tell you to fall down! What have you done? What have you DONE?"

But Dib; his human enemy, and quite possibly, his mentor on life itself: giving a reluctant Zim the possibility of seeing things beyond the veil of indoctrination now lay still, and the burly pushes the Elite was giving him was not rousing the stubborn human to his feet. Then Zim fetched a glance upwards, at the menacing onward march of the blood soiling the ground, and at the Absolute that shone under the morning light. He wrenched it into his shaky claws, and wrested it at Gir's forehead.

Up to this moment, Gir had stood, his eyes that shiny, deep-seated red, his visage displaying hardly no expression at all. Zim angled his claw on the trigger, the hard nozzle on the shiny silver of Gir's head dome, and knew he had the power to instantaneously end the robot's life. And he wanted to. Every single combat simulation had taught him how so very easy it was to push that button, or squeeze that trigger, or turn that dial. Nothing was complete, nothing was a success, until that home blew up, or until that planet cracked, or until all enemies were subsequently obliterated into finer particles.

It was quite ironic. He never thought he'd feel anything once Dib was gone by means he had never given enough care to think about. He might feel consequential disappointment maybe, having lost his favourite plaything. But what opened up inside him was such tormenting black grief that all physical pain that had gone before was nothing in comparison.

With the Absolute wielded to Gir's forehead, the robot's uncanny eyes of callous red dissipated, his previous motives gone as quickly as they had transpired. That bright wonderful cyan reappeared, and Zim's spooch clenched. He almost hated these coming-back-to periods as much as he did the transmogrifying red.

"Hello!" Gir said delightfully to his master whose gun arm was shaking.

His younger self was astride him, arms folded; creatural eyes a glossy, liquid carnal red.

" _Shoot him."_ This young Irken said calmly in a robotic voice. " _It's easy! How hard is it to apply that last degree of pressure? Are you a smeet? Incapable of handling big guns? How did you even pass the Academic exams if you can't even eliminate something made of bolts, wires and circuits? You're no soldier. You're just like them."_ And he freed up one arm to point at Dib. " _Weak."_

Gir looked up at his Father, his eyes cyan. He had just seen the human lying prostrate on the grass. "Did he fall? Is he dead?"

 _Do it now! Do it NOW!_

 _I'm an Irken Elite! Conceived to serve the Empire! I am not afraid! I am strong!_

 _If I destroy Gir, they'll send me a brand new S.I.R. unit. I'll be rid of his malfunctions forever!_

 _I'm good at destroying! This will be easy!_

 _I am Zim after all! Nothing stops me! EVER!_

Then Gir smiled that stupid, carefree smile.

He couldn't. He couldn't do it.

Too many times he had read stories to this very thing made up of bolts, wires and circuits. Too many times he had fed him, taken him for long (albeit boring) walks. Too many times he had fashioned a friend out of him so that he could better reflect his many thoughts and ideas to Gir, as he had had no one else to confide in, lest he talk to himself.

Zim cast the Absolute to the grass.

He could not look at his imaginary self standing there, could not imagine the disapproval he would see reflected within himself.

Dib. The Dib was what mattered.

He shoved against the human as hard as he could manage despite the pain biting into his chest. "Dib beast, PIG! Open your fucking eyes! Don't... don't you die on me! I was supposed to perish you big, dumb FOOL! NOT YOU!"

But Dib did not move, or open his eyes: eyes that were closed behind the cracked glass of his lenses. When Zim took his green claws away, he found them covered in red.

Panic bombarded him. It made the pain somehow worse in his chest, and it skewered his thoughts.

Helplessly he started rocking against Dib's shoulder, not even noticing the bright, blue tears falling from his eyes.

"No! NO! No! Get up, you little worm! You can't leave me! I did not give the order!"

Gir picked something up in the grass.

When he approached Zim with it, the Irken recoiled, hissing and spitting for all his worth. "Get AWAY from me!" And he swatted the object out of Gir's thumbless hand. It landed on a stone, and the alien heard it crack. At first he thought it was the Absolute, and when his watery focus cleared, he saw that it was Dib's mobile phone. He reached for it and held it before his face. He'd seen Dib use it for photos, and calling up his work colleagues. If it was anything like his main phone at home, it shouldn't prove problematic to use.

Remembering the specific number from the commercials on TV, he jabbed in 911 on the touch-screen buttons without even considering the complications it might bring. Shaking badly, erratic heart thumping against his ribs, he raised the phone against his wig so that his right antenna could pick up the dial tones. He was only focused on this and nothing else as his friend bled out on the grass. Everything else was a hypnotic blur.

"The number you have just called is 911. What is your emergency? Do you require..." Suddenly began a female operator.

He started shouting down the phone hysterically. "D...Dib! The Dib! He's been h-hurt bad! He's leaking red everywhere! Do something!"

"Slow down, sir and we'll get help out to you immediately. What is your location?"

"The park! We're at the park! What's taking you? Come here at once!"

"Just calm down sir, what park?"

"Maple park in Lincoln you stupid human!" He was crunching the phone as he raged, and he had to physically force himself to calm down before he broke the device in two.

"We're sending an ambulance to your location immediately. What is..." She seemed to struggle to remember the name: "...Dib's condition?"

He had sunk back down to Dib's side, truly sorry at the outcome. The pants of his thermals were covered in human blood. Gir was skipping through the grass, not having a care in the world. Whenever he came close to him in his silly little games, Zim would snarl and growl deeply at the robot, even if these threats resulted in some heavy coughing.

"He's... he's leaking blood you stupid fool!" He snapped at the phone, "Now summon your humans and fix him!"

"Is he still breathing?" The operator was doing a remarkable job of overlooking his angry insults.

Zim looked over Dib's body in perplexity. He honestly didn't know.

"Dib! Dib... are you breathing?" He pushed and prodded his friend, feeling hopefully and foolishly out of his depth. "Answer me!" In his panic he dropped the phone and the operator was cut off. And Zim did not notice. He sullied his hands in blood again, snivelling like a smeet freshly abandoned by its brood mother. "Get up! Please get up, Dib stink!" This was not the outcome he wanted. If he had died from his spooch infection, then none of this would have happened. And Dib would not be hurt. "Stand up! Stand up I say! I command you to stand!"

The Absolute was lying in the wet grass, glowing that deep, soft blue.

Zim, snarling, held fast, staring at Gir's back as his robot child pirouetted and skipped like a spring lamb.

Not that dissimilar to a child throwing a tantrum, he yelled out in aggravation, hitting his head with a fist.

"Stupid! Stupid, stupid!"

Then he saw a glow that transfixed him from his flooding grief for but a singular moment. It was a pink hue below Dib's neckline.

It was the vial.

The Elite snatched it into his trembling claws and tugged it free from the chain around his human's neck. "I told you to destroy it, Dib stink." His spoke in a raspy hiss. "I was going to use its power to kill you. But you got to me first." He looked for a response. Dib looked serene as he lay there in the grass. And his skin looked really white. Insipid almost. A bead of blood had appeared from the corner of his slightly parted lips. The plasma bolt had gone straight through him.

He drew in a tight breath, knowing what he must do. Zim no longer had to endure. He would destroy Gir before the end, but first, he had to get Dib to survive. One of them had to.

Zim glanced over his shoulder, vial in his claws, and directed the crystal gem into a tiny port at the top of his PAK. The bottom half of the vial slipped in nicely, connecting with an energy translink. The feedback was instant as was to be expected from all good Irken appliances.

Supplemented by the endorsement of this neurological energy, his PAK bled an almost reddish pink. In the next instant all pain evaporated as if he had stepped through another plane of existence, leaving his atrophied body behind. All his regularity levels shot to green, and his vision cleared and focused, no longer doubling. The potion in the vial was being fed into his system, increasing PAK functionality across the board and augmenting his reflexes. It was but a simple cerebral drug for the PAK, turning him into a stronger combat unit for hardships presented in battles. It was additional power, power he had hoped to use against Dib.

It would not last, and the extremes of sudden pressure and energy could, in his weakened state, cause a cable to rapture in his PAK, or burn out delicate wires and circuits. He knew he would be hastening his own deadline. Zim however was content with this.

No longer smitten with indecision, and faced with a better purpose, appliances protruded from his PAK in short, sliding bursts. Luckily there was plenty of hedgerow cover in this particular area of the park, or else doing this would have exposed him before the human public.

Utilities better suited for melding metal together, and closing holes in cables and tubes worn ragged by plasma emissions, Zim now used these to saturate the bleeding. First he had to peel back Dib's shirt: a shirt now sopping wet with blood. And it wasn't just that one internal injury. Dib's body was scorched with burns from the plasma spray. Like an impacting asteroid, the plasma scattered outwards, causing collateral damage. When Irkens made and perfected weaponry, they not only made things that could kill, but could also maim, so that even an indirect hit would work its magic, and put a stop to the opposition.

Internally programming a laser tool to spill up from the PAK's innards, it began to rebuild deeper internal tissue. But the process, despite the potency of the vial, was slow. Zim was not a biological repairer, and even if he were, far-flung as he was from his early days of being an Irken scientist, human biology was different. Not so different one might think, as they were both carbon-based life forms that breathed in oxygen, but to Zim, humans were radically foreign and presented a plethora of mysteries. How could it be that their blood was red? How could it be that they had no many organs, all of which did not heal as fast as his? Why did they have such comparatively small eyes? And why did they even have external noses?

The blood flow was still staggeringly fast. Red fluid was all over him.

Another arm-unit erupted out of his PAK like a crane, and on it was a portable oxygen faceplate. He was just about to place the tiny oval plastic on Dib's face when he thought he heard distant wailing.

Due to his poor hearing, he did not hear the sirens coming until they were almost upon him. At once he straightened and stood away from Dib's body, terror running strongly through him as electricity bolted down a cable. All his PAK implements were secreted away again.

Humans.

Other humans.

They smelt of oil, sweat and aggression. The Irken hovered near his Dib, hiding the Absolute away into one of Dib's patchwork jacket padded pockets. Then he grabbed the Dib's phone, and hid that away too.

The ambulance was a big white van-like vehicle that was loud and blinding. Its washing red and blue lights flooded the scene until he was dazed by them.

A man wearing a suit came over to him wearing a giant red cross on his chest. Zim flinched, sure that it was an autopsy surgeon come to capture him. He expected to be grabbed and slung into the vehicle at any moment, so he threw his arms up, eyes pinched shut.

"Hey, what happened here?" Asked the tall man.

Zim peered up over his arms to see the man bending down to see him eye to eye. More humans were scrambling out of the ambulance and were attending the young man who lay on the grass.

"D-Dib!" Zim stammered, looking across from his friend's body, to the stranger kneeling before him. The man smelt of disinfectant and other horrid chemicals that only made Zim think of confinement and capture in big, Irken warning letters. "He's hurt! You... you must fix him!"

"Take it easy, there. What's your name?"

"Zim!" He croaked.

"And that's your friend Dib?"

"Yes." As he watched, looking past the man questioning him, he watched the team of suited paramedics lay a stretcher down beside his dearest human. Was Dib even alive? He had tried to halt the bleeding. But it had been so great. "W-Where are you taking him?"

"To the hospital. What happened?"

"Urm..." Nothing came to him whatever so: no plan, no trick, and no forthcoming lies. So he just stood there, shivering in apprehension and nervous exhaustion. The shakes were coming back. And they were coming back with a vengeance after using the vial.

"It's okay." The man said, assuming that this 'Zim' was suffering mental trauma, which wasn't all that far from the truth, "we're here to help. We're going to get Dib into the ambulance and take him to the hospital right away. You can come along if you want. How... how old are you?" He was obviously perplexed by Zim's height, and the colour of his skin. Even though Zim was old, he was still sometimes mistaken for a child.

"Eh, eleven?" He tried desperately, not wishing to give away his true age. After all, it was easy to give them what they wanted to hear.

"Then he's your father?"

"Filthy guardian." Zim brusquely said on autopilot. At least he wasn't being chastised for being an alien. Even now, in broad daylight, his disguise was doing the trick, but for once he wasn't worrying about his appearance. His concern was for Dib. The other paramedics were doing things, and to Zim they were likened to unpredictable monsters as they affixed gadgets and gizmos to his human, and strapped him to the stretcher without preamble. Their methods were alien, their ways completely indecipherable. Then they were lifting him into the back of the ambulance while the pulsing red and blue siren lights made everything look crazed and cold. Zim took a shy limping step forwards, caught up in a web of emotions.

The first paramedic who had knelt down to talk with him was looking at the frazzled Irken curiously. "You look very unwell yourself. Come along and I'll look after you. I'll get the doctor to have a look at you too. Don't worry. Everything will be all right."

The mention of 'being looked at' and 'doctors' was enough to make Zim want to bolt for any hidey hole. But his fear for Dib grounded him. He could not leave. Not until he knew his human was going to live if he wasn't dead already.

"Come on. Just this way." And the paramedic was standing back up. Like a frightened animal looking about him on all sides, seeing threats where none existed, Zim stiffly followed the suited stranger wearing the red cross to the back of the ambulance. The funny, strange smells were even stronger here, and the interior of the vehicle welcomed him in about as much as a cage did. There were human gadgets everywhere, and strangers moved around far too quickly for him to cope with.

There was a step into the back of the ambulance, and when Zim tried to climb it, he slipped and fell back into the grass and snow. He was too stupefied and bemused to process his thoughts and motor skills properly. But the first paramedic he had spoken to was behind him, and helped him get inside.

And there Dib lay, tucked up on a stretcher bed with wheels with an oxygen mask equipped over his overly white face. Nylon belts secured him in place, making Zim again think of autopsies. A female human was there, wearing another red cross. She was carrying out her usual duties for her newly boarded patient, but Zim only looked up at her with horror.

Behind him the ambulance doors suddenly closed, sealing him inside. Next, he heard the engine growl beneath him, and then the feel of motion as the ambulance started moving. The woman wearing the red cross came over to him. "You're his little kid, right? Just sit on that chair against the wall and apply the seatbelt. Safety first, as my grandma always used to say. Now don't you worry, we'll get to the hospital in no time." She regarded him for a moment, before turning back to Dib. She was applying pressure on his wound. But even he could see the red stuff dripping from the stretcher to the floor in wet plops.

To avoid suspicion by doing what he was told, Zim curtly went to the far seat and strapped himself in. The ambulance was wobbling along on the road as it travelled at questionable speed, and the equipment hanging up along the interior walls rattled and banged. During the entire journey, Zim kept his eyes on his human, and nothing else.

He decided then and there that if Dib was going to die, then he would too.

It was a heavy decision to make, and he knew it was terribly misguided. He also knew that caring this much about a native enemy creature was pure heresy. He had tried, tried so very hard to please his Tallest and conquer this miserable planet, and as the weeks crept into months, and the months into years, he saw only a struggle. A struggle to keep on achieving with no results. Age had caught up with him, and now it was too late. He wanted to do so much, and be the conqueror he always believed himself to be, but then the 'Dib' happened. The human had shown him such disgusting, dishonourable kindness and questionable patience. It was enough to make an Irken self-destruct. Yet here he was, emotionally attached to the enemy. Irkens did not understand even the bare concept of friendship. And why should they? You could not make friends in war.

Yet Zim had discovered through the human's compassion that friendships could hold mutual benefits: a disguised symbiosis that gave Zim the strength he vitally needed through the last years of his life. And it was only occurring to him now.

 _He got me out of that trap after all. He set it. He planned it. Then the fool set me free. Now here we are, cast together in another trap. We bonded on that summer day after school. Bonded to a fate that would lead us to this._

But Dib's greatest act shocked Zim most of all. His distress was still severe, and it entrapped completely like a rising wall. In his mind, the scene played out, again and again: Gir aiming his inbuilt weapon at him, and Dib stepping bravely between them without a word. Why would he do that? He had a future! He was a human! Yet he had sacrificed himself in order to save an unwitting Irken who had no more future.

 _He couldn't let me go._ Zim thought in bitter distress. _Why do I mean so much to him? He's... he's a stupid human! A stupid fucking human!_

The ambulance tittered and rocked, and the blasting sound of the sirens went on and went as it rushed through traffic. Dib wasn't moving, and in fact hadn't so much as jerked or twitched since he'd fallen. But as Zim discerned his friend, he did see his chest rising as he breathed, even if it was only faint. Bleak hope weakened the walls of terror in Zim's mind, but they did not crumble.

x

When the ambulance made it to the hospital after a ten minute journey, more chaos and confusion ensued. To avoid being pushed around, Zim got well clear of the commotion and wilted on the sidelines, watching his human be wheeled into the Accident and Emergency Unit. The smell in the air was toxic: there were more ambulances coming in and out of the giant parking bay, and delivery vans driving this way and that, their car exhausts spilling oil and gassy fumes into the chilly air. And there were lots of lots of humans. They were loud, smelly and volatile. Zim never knew what they were going to do next. While he had spent years determining Dib's behaviour he knew next to nothing about any other member of the human species. And so he could not predict them.

When he tried to follow Dib and the paramedics into the Accident and Emergency Unit, he was stopped by a traffic of people, all shouting into their phones or smoking cigarettes. This was not his jurisdiction: his place, yet he persisted, determined to know if Dib would yet survive, or perish.

As for Gir, he had left him far, far behind in the park. What he would do was no longer of much concern. Dib's fate was all he now cared about.

The paramedic he had met previously saw him lingering on the sidelines, looking bewildered. So he approached, lending out a hand for Zim to take, still believing him to be a shell-shocked eleven-year old. "Come on, kid. Let's get you some ice cream and then take you to a doctor. We'll look after you."

The kind offer was not welcomed in the least. Zim swatted the hand away as if the paramedic's gesture was one of hostility. "Just take me to the Dib! I don't want your ice cream and doctors! I want results! I want answers! Do you understand?"

The paramedic was now looking down at him in a different light. "It's okay, little guy. You can see him soon I hope, if he makes it through surgery, which I'm sure he will. But that might be awhile."

"I don't care how long it takes! I just want to see him!"

"How about I take you to the waiting room? Would you like that?" His tone was patronizing, as if he truly believed he was still conversing with a child, and not a century-and- a-half-old Irken Elite.

"Very well then!"

He followed the man inside the Accident and Emergency Unit, and Zim was once more dazed with the amount of people he was confronted with. Their hot bodies inside the stale reception room produced excess heat, and they stank of sweat, body odour and dirt. Some of the really injured were wheeled out on beds into various rooms, and a few of them were moaning in pain. It gave Zim bad vibes that made his right antenna twitch uneasily under the wig. And every so often, out of a door or vent, came a nauseous waft of strong blood and death. It made Zim feel like vomiting. And from all the stress he suddenly got terrible shaking episodes.

"Not far now, just this way." The paramedic said, walking through a throng of people. The reception room was just so... full of injured and diseased human beings. To Zim they looked more like the victims of an ongoing war, and not from mundane life at all.

"Wh-What are they all sick with? The fleas? Grenades?" He asked, struggling to keep up with the human wearing the red cross.

"Oh? No, no. People have accidents, or they get too drunk. Whatever happens, they end up here for treatment."

"That's it? There's no war going on? No great battles?"

To think humans were all here... because they had... accidents? How dumb were they? Did they all just bumble into each other? Or drive like morons and run over their own people? Or get so drunk they needed medical help?

Though he knew humans were stupid anyway, he still could not fathom them at all. And Dib was here, stuck in a place full of shuffling, moronic humans.

He had to pause as they went down a corridor when another session of the shakes gripped him into a locking spasm. The paramedic paused and came over, looking concerned. "It's a rush, isn't it? I understand what you're going through right now. But the doctors are going to do the best they can for your guardian. Do you have any parents, or friends I can ring to come and look after you?"

Zim grumbled haplessly as the shivers tore down the length of his spine. Even his claws, legs and toes were affected. "Clara." He said. It was really the only name that popped into his head like fucking magic. He seldom would have remembered her, but he knew she and Dib had a strong connection, be it love or mutual gain, he had no idea. If Irkens ever teamed up with other Irkens, rare as it was, it was purely to build strength and tactical advantages, nothing else. "Clara... is... with the D-Dib. I can't remember her last name, but..."

"That's okay. No doubt your guardian has a wallet on him, and that'll contain all the necessary details."

That would involve Professor Membrane too, and Dib's aggressive sister, Gaz. He wasn't sure he wanted to see them, even for a moment. Gaz would most likely swing him out of the window from the top floor, suspecting his role to play in Dib's injuries. And she wouldn't be that far wrong.

"My name's Joey, by the way." Exclaimed the paramedic with a gentle smile. "I'll take you somewhere warm and quiet, and in the meantime I'll make some phone calls. You _do_ look really sick. I think some hot chocolate will do, don't you think, little guy?"

Zim nodded, and his spasms slowly weakened, releasing him from its coils at last. With a shuddery breath, the little Irken once more followed Joey down the white-walled corridor and into the next section of the hospital.

The top of the vial was still sticking out of his PAK.

To comfort himself, he thought of years gone by: of when he had lost the Voot in the falling snow up in Montana when he had very nearly been caught breaking the promise, and the ongoing mercy Dib had shown him, even then.

What was it that he had said in the Voot, while it had spun, out of control? Trailing smoke, debris and fuselage oil?

Zim put his head in his claws, repeating only these words over and over and over again:

"All things can be fixed. All... all things c-can be fixed. All things... all things can be... can be fixed..."

 _All things can be fixed._

And he had quite innocently forgotten that Dib still had all of his rinauh.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Ah, the purpose of the vial, finally revealed! Man oh man, that secrecy was hard to keep in! I was sad to have Zim finally use it. I kinda liked it around Dib's neck. ^^ It had become a staple thing in its own way. I am too sentimental about these things. XD Anyway, hope that chapter was... uh... as fun as it can be? Considering the darker circumstances. Yeah. Sorry Dib. I'm bad I know. Not only did Gir shoot you, but Zim took his necklace back. :(

Also, is this 'dark Zim's' first appearance? I think so. I kinda burrowed him from 'Saving Zim' and implemented him big time into 'S9.' It really works! And man he gets scary!


	30. Zim's Ultimatum

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 30 (36): Zim's Ultimatum**

 _'I heard a whisper on my shoulder_  
 _Pretending life is worth the fight_  
 _O can you hear the song of thunder_  
 _When fear strangles a soldier's pride_  
 _And on the surface of the waters_  
 _Will dance reflections of the fire in the night'_

 _Woodkid - The Other Side_

-x-

Zim had not seen the rest of Dib's family for many years. At least, not in person. Professor Membrane flared up on TV sometimes, showcasing some new marvel for the public to lay their eyes on, or he was on a news channel being interviewed at some public gathering or charity event, so seeing him wasn't quite a shock. But the Professor had always been a tall man, even taller than his son, which intimidated Zim, and the scythe of hair on his head was much longer, and it was as white as snow.

Gaz meanwhile remained thin and angry-looking. She was wearing a teenage Hot Topic outfit, badges and key chains as if she was still in college. Zim hid round the corner outside the room, avoiding them at all costs, should they see him, and blame him.

Dib was in the intensive care unit, but the invader had to wait longer. Only immediate family were allowed in.

It had been hours since the surgery, and hours since he'd last been with the Dib in the ambulance. The day light hours had evaporated, and a sudden, inexplicable chill had seized the city. More snow was falling, covering the outside buildings in frail layers of magical icy white. Zim had not eaten or slept, and had been in bad pain for almost six hours. The painkillers had long worn off and though he knew it was perfectly sensible to return home and fix himself some Irken medicinal concoction, he remained stationed at the hospital, desperate for news on Dib's condition. As he stood, favouring his right leg, staring down at the clean hospital floor without blinking, he felt a progressive split: a divergence within himself, am almost schizophrenic parting.

 _I hate Dib! He was always meddling in my affairs! He could never keep away!_

Then he'd blank out for several minutes longer, remembering their pastimes. Their battles. Their victories.

In many places, he felt broken, disconnected. The Dib had made him feel like this. And he could not fathom why.

Joey had been keeping him updated, as Zim was too afraid to approach the doctors or nurses directly, and so, he informed him that Dib's condition was unstable.

"Is... is he broken?" Zim had asked, for even then, he had been hiding in the corridor, right by Dib's private I.C.U room.

Joey had shaken his head. "We've done all we can. But he received major burns, and a lot of tissue and bone damage. He could make it, or he might not." He sounded hesitant to say, as if what he really wanted to say was a hard truth, one that he believed an 'eleven' year old might not be capable of understanding.

He had looked at Zim then with those downcast eyes of hesitancy, wondering if he understood at all, and the Irken had. Every word.

"Tell you what. I'll grab you something to eat and drink. That'll cheer you up!"

As if a small bribe would make it all better again.

And Joey, as promised, returned, giving Zim a bag of cookies and a cup of hot chocolate. Zim nodded his thanks, but as soon as Joey had left to perform his paramedic duties, Zim tipped the food and drink into the nearest trash can. The last thing he wanted was sustenance.

That was two hours ago, and Zim remained posted in the corridor, mostly shivering, his eyes holding an absent, hollowed look. Now Gaz and the professor had arrived, and he was wise enough to keep out of sight. No doubt they'd suspect him right away, should they learn of the plasma burns.

Guilt was not an accustomed attribute when it came to Irken sentiments. Guilt was emotion, and emotion was mostly condemned. Most Irkens were conceived without these instinctive weaknesses, but some were. And Zim could not help but feel these confusing stabs of guilt and self-hatred.

Gaz and Professor Membrane stayed in the I.C.U for some time and Zim remained patient, but as much as he tried, he could not hear the conversations going on inside.

At ten minutes to nine at night, they finally left. He watched them leave, their backs to him as they meandered sadly down the corridor. Did they suspect him at all? How much did they know? Or would they just label it as misfortune?

Zim waited until they were completely gone before he hesitantly confronted the white I.C.U door. He stared at the stencilled words bleakly, his tired eyes wide in staggering disbelief, the very same disbelief that had plagued him since Dib had taken the hit for him.

He discovered that he was massaging his sternum again with an absent claw, something he did when he got particularly anxious. It was starting to ache there with that age-old intensity that always began in subtle, grinding waves that showed potential of intensifying soon after into bolts of lasting agony. He let his claw drop away from his chest, even if, minutes later, he'd be kneading at his sternum unconsciously again.

From behind the precincts of his mind, he felt the distant yet very strong lure of the PAK, and felt its shackles retackle the sanctum of his mentality as it prepared to efface his consciousness. It was signalling him to shut down, ready to cradle his subconsciousness in its hibernative programming. It was but a modest calling, surely to gain strength should he ignore it a second time.

Taking a breath and stealing himself for what he was about to see, he pushed open the door with his claws and stepped inside.

Within were stark, discomforting smells. A lot of them were from the chemicals the staff used to keep the place sterile, but to Zim they were nauseous and just as toxic as the bacteria they killed. He could smell ammonic bleach smells, disinfectants and alcoholic solutions. But it was warm, much warmer than the chilly corridor he had been standing in.

But beneath all the chemically smells was the distinctive stink of copper. And that coppery stench meant only one thing: human blood.

The bed was surrounded by a flimsy white curtain. And within it was the perfectly still silhouette of a human being lying down.

Apprehensively, Zim confronted the curtain and grabbed at one end, sliding it from its rails with all the bravery he could muster. His eyes fell on his human: a human that looked very different from the Dib he knew. He was as white as the sheets he lay on and his face and lower neck was plastered in bandages. The rest of him was covered by bed sheets and blankets, so Zim could not tell of the damage further down. What he did know was that the neighbouring machines were monitoring the human's vitals and that Dib was alive. For now.

He felt guilty, standing there, looking at the damage he had wrought.

Looking around, he grabbed a stool and shunted it over to the side of the bed. Then he hopped up onto it and nudged Dib's shoulder. "Human! You can wake up now!" He liked to think that Dib was just sleeping. Humans slept a lot, wasting half their lives in bed, or so the Irken believed. "Let's go home! I hate this stinkin' place! It's full of morons and idiots!" His incessant nudges weren't working. Not this time. "Dib! Dib wake up! You've slept enough!" He rocked back and forth as he nudged his human. Dib's bruised eyelids remained closed, and the pattern in his breathing did not change, neither did the bleeping echo of the ECG machine. Zim did not understand human comas. He only knew of PAK hibernative protocols.

It was easy to get angry, easy to blame the Dib. Sometimes anger was all he had left when something blew up in his face or some mission he had been planning for months just backfired on him. Anger was something to fall back on, something that might strengthen his crumbling resolve before he lost it completely. But anger planted a black bitterness that had made him into the mean Irken he was today.

"You should have let me take the hit!" He brokenly yelled, shivering in anger. "I didn't want you in the way! But YOU insisted! I was quite capable of handling it, but no! You interfered! You and that big fucking head of yours!"

Dib did not respond. He had become a breathing mannequin beneath Zim's desperate nudges and nothing more.

"Why didn't you leave me to die in that trap? Why? Now look at you! Look at YOU! You stupid, stupid human!"

 _I am a destroyer. Not a fixer! I cannot fix you!_

He gave Dib a look of ripe confusion when his urges and summons did not evoke any response. In the stiff silence of the room, menaced by the blips and the beeps and the hiss of oxygen from the tank, Zim pinched the vial from the port in the topside of his PAK and affixed it onto the broken necklace he had mended. Then he attached it around his human's neck, watching the tiny drop at the bottom of the vial glow a gentle pink. He had thought he had used all of it.

After two minutes of looking at the Dib, he eventually crumbled, still holding into the human with his claws. He was so far down the rabbit hole in shame and distress that he did not notice or even smell the human step into the room. It was only when they loudly coughed to clear their throat that he started and looked round.

At first he thought it was the designated doctor or nurse, for Zim had a hard time telling the difference, when he recognised the female standing before the bed. It was Clara, clutching her purse tightly to her chest. "What... what are you doing h-here?" He gasped, feeling the tears roll down his sullen cheeks.

"I'm his partner, remember?" Her tone was anything but friendly. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at him in suspicion. Then she took a step forward. Sensing that he wasn't welcomed, Zim stepped away, though he did so with great sadness.

Clara took his place, pushing the stool to one side so that she could kiss Dib's cool forehead. Then he heard her openly crying.

His guilt and shame somehow doubled.

He went to tap a claw on her shoulder, hoping to excuse himself when she turned on him. "What happened? I was at work and I get a phone call that Dib was in the hospital! He was with you at the time! Well?"

Zim was at a loss. His mind ran through his library of excuses. "We... we were... playing. Yeah. Playing. With... explosive... uh...sticks."

She threw back a hand, and drew it fast across his cheek like lightning.

Zim stepped back, stung, from the contact and the suddenness of it. He automatically placed a claw on the tender spot on his cheek where he had been struck. "How could you? He could die, Zim! Don't you know any better? And how come you're fine? There is not a single mark on you! Did you push him into the explosion? Did you?"

"The... The Dib! He... he will.. uh... explain..."

" _Don't_ you go near him!" Now she was pushing him away as if he was no better than a renowned criminal. "I don't know what you did, but it must have been something alien! You caused this!"

His troubled, racing mind suddenly shrieked to a stop.

As he stood there, staring up at her, she began to openly cry in front of him. "I thought you and Dib were friends! Why did you hurt him? He risked everything for you! So did I! I could turn you in! I could ring anyone up right now, and have you taken away!"

"Clara! Clara... no! No!"

"Get out of this room right now!"

Zim wanted to challenge her, call her names or just plain insult her, but when he took a moment to glare bitterly up into her teary eyes, he knew that this wasn't the moment. And it wasn't his place. Because of his stubbornness to keep Gir unharmed, this had happened. And his exploits had come between Dib and his potential future. Dib had been obsessed with simple ideals to feel normal and wanted. And now it might not happen at all.

With his cheek still stinging, Zim faced her, faced her like a soldier, and saluted Clara with veiled hurt in his eyes.

Then he turned and marched away. He had to leave: had to depart from the crazed, wild malady of death that paraded down every stint of corridor and room. He still did not know if Dib would make it. His heart told him that the human wouldn't.

Joey stopped him down one of the long, winding hallways that had painted walls of chilly pale blue. With Joey was an owlish-looking doctor with a grey stubbly beard but he had big, kind brown eyes that somehow contradicted the stern apathy of his white coat and stature. Dangling from the strange doctor's shoulders was a long, menacing stethoscope. Its thin metal column gleamed brightly like the wire, freezing the breath in Zim's lungs.

"Ah, there you are!" Joey began in his parental tone. "This is Zim!" He explained to the doctor. Zim just stared straight up at them, hopping nervously from one foot to the other, feeling like a deer caught between two hungry wolves. Had he told this gangly paramedic his name? He could not remember. "Zim." Joey began fervently, "This good doctor is Dr. Mills. He's going to take really good care of you."

The doctor smiled widely, showing some of his clean, white teeth. He even bent down to Zim's level, causing the skirt of his coat to rumple upon the floor. "I'm sure this must be very frightening for you. There's a little room I want to take you to, so you can have a quick examination. Are there any other family members I can call who can take care of you?"

"If not, I say we take him to the Children's Ward." Joey adamantly insisted. "We have plenty of room."

The doctor paused, looked to Joey, and whispered something. Zim tried to hear, which was rather difficult, with his left-sided deafness and the wig. But, from what he could make out, the doctor was saying something about Dib being a 'drug addict' and that Zim was 'merely another victim' to the habit.

"Well then." Dr. Mills said, smiling at Zim pleasantly. "What do you say, kid? Want to stay with us for a bit?"

Zim eyed the stethoscope. Then looked at Dr. Mills's kind appraising eyes, and at Joey who was nodding at him eagerly.

' _You know Zim, when the nurse examines you, she'll notice that you don't have human organs. Then it's just a short step to a hospital and from there to an alien autopsy table and then you're just another segment on 'mysterious mysteries!'"_

Out of the many things Dib had said, and threatened him with, this was one of the many that had stayed with him after all these years. The fear had driven him to harvest human organs to protect his existence. And now it was happening again.

"No! I uh... have step-parents at home!" Zim tried to say without blurting out his usual stammering assembly of words. "I don't need your horrible assistance!"

Dr. Mills's smile dropped just a tad. There was genuine concern in his shimmering hazel eyes. "Then they can come and collect you. In the meantime, we'll take care of you, Zim. You can even visit play area, once I've had a look at you."

"You'll love the play area!" Joey added happily.

Zim just blanched. Then the doctor started to lift the instrument from his shoulders; a stethoscope that fiercely glinted under the artificial lights like the wire cords that had cut into him ages past.

"No! No! You get that thing away from me! All of you, stay the fuck away from me!" And he spun, launching himself away on fast little feet that pounded up the corridor's hard, linoleum surface.

Faceless strangers parted the way for him and he blindly knocked into a nurse, causing her to drop her charts and documents. The building had become a suffocating menace, full of misery, disease and death.

When he barrelled his way through the humans who threw him scornful looks in return, he broke out into the open after running through the main doors, and took in a desperate breath. The cold in the air chilled his lungs to their roots and the sidewalk was covered in ice. Even so, it was still busy outside the hospital as humans came and went, some with bandages on various parts of their body, and there was some with missing limbs.

Frightened that the night would somehow mutate them into zombies, Zim ran down the pathway in the vague direction of home. Snow was everywhere, changing the landscape irrevocably. It was March but the weather seemed to only strengthen its tenacity. Zim had been shaking to begin with. Now he was positively shuddering as he hugged his arms over his chest and attempted to brace the snow as he ran.

Enduring the cold was one thing, but enduring what he had done was quite another. And no matter how deeply the winter chill sobbed into his arthritic bones, his guilt remained all the more painful.

 _I... I couldn't do anything!_

 _I am an invader. I've been through hundreds of missions, some of them simulated. Yet I couldn't save a lowly human being!_

He had never confronted or even hailed the term: 'failure' in all his long, hard life. Now it suddenly shored up to the forefront of his panicked mind and he could no longer deny it.

To be hit by plasma was no joke. Irkens had lost their limbs that way, or they went blind. Sometimes their PAKs alleviated the symptoms and got them on their feet again, but most plasma strikes ended in premature death.

During his retreat, something in his left thermal pocket began vibrating, casting out a musical note as if his clothing was somehow possessed.

He stepped and hid in a corner next to a newspaper stand, panting in fear. He grabbed at his thermals, believing that he was going insane. Then his claws rested on the device within the fabric of his pocket, and he stupidly realized that it was Dib's phone.

Foolishly hoping that it was Dib calling him, he unzipped the pocket and struggled to press the right touch-screen button. He must have done something right, because the musical number had stopped and he could hear someone speaking from the device. He raised it to his wig on his right side, straining to hear. When that failed, he lifted his wig just a little for his one antenna to better catch the voice.

"Hello? Dib? Is that you?"

"Uh, excuse me?" Said a low, gravelly voice. "Who the hell is this? Am I speaking to Dib? I need to speak with him right now."

The voice was not Dib's. In fact, Zim was pretty sure he did recognise it, but he had no idea why.

The voice spoke again, this time with less anger: "Who... who is this?"

"Uh! Just another human Earth child! I just... burrowed this phone."

"Holy shit. I know THAT voice! Jesus! You're... you're that alien? Aren't you! Answer me!"

Zim tried to turn the phone off so hard that he flipped it, and in his attempts to grab it before it fell, he caused it to somersault several times in the air. The phone smashed to the floor, causing the screen to crack, and bits of its internal wiring and circuits to come loose. He scooped these up into his claws, feeling guilty somehow even though it was just a glorified communicator.

At least he'd got rid of the speaker, whoever it was. But his paranoia did shoot up another few notches. Dib had told Clara that he was an alien. Who else had he told?

After an hour of hard walking or limping depending upon his lasting levels of strength, he made it home without slipping on the ice. The sky was black, and spewed out cold snowflakes that dotted Zim's vision. He threw the purple door open, dumbfounded when he saw that the lounge was empty. There was no Gir.

In fact, the place was eerily vacant, and he received no forthcoming welcome, not even from the computer.

But the TV was on. Had he felt it playing cartoons?

He reached for the remote that was habitually sticky from the maple syrup Gir liked to eat. He hit the red button at the top, and the screen went to black. He stared at that black screen, and saw his near future coming to the same very conclusion.

Then Gir waddled in from the kitchen holding a can of diet poop, smiling as if nothing had happened!

In his rage, Zim cast off his human disguise and plucked the surprised robot from the floor without preamble. Then he threw the robot against the wall. This exertion made him pant all the harder, but he no longer cared about his welfare.

Gir slid down the wall, looking perplexed, and a little sorry for himself. "What I do nows?" He asked in his tinny voice.

"You! YOU little robot!" He reached forwards, grabbed his child's antenna and again slammed Gir into the wall. Dents started appearing in the robot's metal shell. The sane part of him recoiled at this rebellious act. This was his child! His ally in war! The gift the Tallest had granted him! And he had taken the robot in great honour! But Dib's face flashed before him, covered in blood and bandages, and his anger rallied him again, squatting out this unsettling guilt.

"Hey! Master! That tickles!" Gir chuckled back as if this was all one big game.

"You ruined everything!" He slung him across the room, and Gir landed on the floor, skidding until he hit the bottom of the couch.

He kicked his little legs out, smiling despite his master's flash of pure aggression. "That was fun! Do it again!"

Zim limped over, and kicked Gir as hard as he could. The fight and the long walk here had crippled him, and his pants were turning into harsh wheezes. "Turn into Duty Mode! Go on! Show me what you've got! I'm tired of waiting! Tired of _you_! If you want to end me, then here I am!"

Gir started to laugh, but it was teary laugh of confusion. Zim wrenched his hand over the robot's antenna and stood him up. Then he grabbed Gir's little hand and pressed it hard against his chest.

"Shoot me Gir! Right here! Go on! This is what you wanted, isn't it? ISN'T IT?"

Gir looked up to him, befuddled for the first time.

"What? Lost the nerve? Suddenly changed your itsy-bitsy little mind? Well, ZIM won't have it! Shoot me now! Stop wasting any more of my time! And make it quick, damn you!"

Gir looked from the hand pressed against his master's chest, then up again into his appealing fuchsia eyes that had a glint of pure madness in them. "But I don't want to." He said, quite aptly, as if some or all of him understood.

"Gir." His anger began to drain, and with it, his physical strength. He was too tired. Too old. And above it all, the guilt pressed down like a leaden bubble of gravity. "It's okay. Don't be afraid. Just hurry it up, will you? No Irken likes to wait unless it's for a perfectly good reason!"

He watched Gir, hoping for the 'switch' to take effect. But Gir's eyes remained a bright, if a little confused, cyan.

Even so, Zim refused to remove the robot's hand over his heart. This was the moment. He was done with everything else.

"Well?" Zim snapped when Gir just stood there. "You've been trying to kill me all damn month! And now you may have ended Dib's fucking life! I will not stand for it!"

"I... I didn't hurt... anyone!" He confessed, looking appalled.

The Irken Elite just ignored his confusion. "I'm making it easy for you, Gir! Good luck paying the mortgage! And the bills when I'm gone!" When Gir still did nothing, his PAK legs exploded, only this time they were not used to elevate his height. All four bent round and forwards and all four points began to burn into flares of comely blue. They pointed down at Gir.

"M-Master?"

"If you don't kill me, then I'm going to shoot all four of these lasers into you. They may not do much on their own, but all four of them firing simultaneously might be enough to melt your circuits. You have ten seconds to comply."

All this aggression and still, Gir was not breaking into his Duty Mode? He was offering his life on a fucking plate, and still the robot infuriated him! What more could he do to help Gir along? He felt ridiculous, standing here, waiting for Gir to do what he did best.

Zim shoved the robot's hand harder into his ribs until it hurt. "Hurry it up! This is my final order! Shoot me!"

-x-

Ten minutes later, and all was serenely quiet in the base.

And for ten whole minutes, Zim sat amongst Gir's remains, feeling himself break away a piece at a time. His eyes were as blank as dull red stones. With trembling claws, he picked up a random piece of his child, looked at it in mild confusion and loss, and placed it back down again, only to move onto the next piece and the next with the same detached look; peering, dazedly, at whatever it was he was holding without really seeing it.

Lastly he held Gir's head in his claws, and pressed it to his chest in a forlorn embrace. His right antenna had wilted right down so that it fell like a limp noodle upon his PAK.

After minutes had elapsed, he stood up without a word, leaving the carcass at his feet. His whole body drooped. His shoulders had sagged. His shuffled instead of walked.

Stiffly, Zim straightened himself up, and removed Dib's tattered, badly stitched patchwork jacket by tugging it off his shoulders with slow remorse. Then, as if he was handling a very delicate ornament, he laid the jacket on the cushion of the sofa and stretched against its fabric with his claws until he'd ironed out most of the wrinkles and kinks with diffident affection. Then he folded it once, folded it twice, and left it in a tiny pile on the sofa. He regarded it for a moment, reliving bittersweet anecdotes, then departed for the conduit behind the bookcase.

"Computer. Ready the autodoc for my decommission. And bring me my best uniform. And I mean, my best! No wishwashy examples!"

"At once, Master."

As he proceeded to level 7, his baleful eyes were unreadable, his face like stone. He stood there in the conduit, hands behind his back, knees locked. The conduit reached the lower level, the doors opened, and Zim marched on through without comment or expression. As requested, in his resting chambers a long metal line had extended from the wall, its coils glowing the softest pink. From a singular clip hung his best uniform. It wasn't exactly military, exemplifying good taste maybe, for when Irkens celebrated their rank, rather than wearing something practical, they could get away with some flamboyancy. Zim's costume distinguished his 'Elite' rank. It was a heavy crimson, almost matching the dark, wistful fuchsia of his eyes, and it came with a flashy, short robe at the back that flowed beneath the underside of his PAK. It had some chest armour that was padded into a diamond effect, and it had hip pads and shoulder pauldrons.

Zim took his time unzipping his thermals as he had the patchwork jacket, stepping out of them and again carefully folding them up before, placing them with unusual care on his cot. He now stood totally naked, his pale green skin exposed to the ventilated air. Then, with callow eyes, he turned purposefully to his new gear, and gave it one stiff nod of approval.

He slipped into it, stretching it out with his left leg, as the joints were flexible. Then, after planting his feet into the boots, he fitted his arms down its tight, cuffed sleeves. It was a slightly loose fit, having lost substantial weight since he'd had them last. He tested the sleeves, liking the silky texture against his bony arms, and teased out a crease from under his armpit. Snagging up the chest armour was a painful affair however; as he had to shore it up over ripped and torn flesh that openly bled. It made him hiss. Then, deciding to have a look at himself, he went towards his tiny mirror, and then paused, deciding, no, he did not want to look at himself. Not in these clothes.

He used a tiny flashmirror instead, like a compact which limited what he wanted to see so that he could isolate all the unsavoury whitish or dark blemishes on his skin, such as the ones on his neck, right cheek and under his right eye. These he screened over with green unguent. He had to look presentable.

After he was done, he clicked the flashmirror closed, and painstakingly placed it back in its customary drawer as if he'd have need of it again.

Lastly, he opened another drawer, this one containing an Irken skin-stamp that was likened to the ink stamps humans used every day. He raised it, claws trembling just a little; betraying how he felt inside, and planted it on his forehead, in the very centre above his eyes. He left it there for a moment or two, applying good pressure, before removing it. Branded upon his brow, in deep-seated purple was the insignia of the renowned Elite in its bold V shape.

He straightened again, took a deep a breath as much as the pain would allow, and studied himself inwardly for a moment. He stared down as his boldly coloured sleeves, boots, and armoured leggings with confused disquiet. His right antenna bobbed lower and lower down until it was hanging beneath the line of his shoulders. He felt as if he had been plonked at a dead-end, and that only he had brought himself there.

"Master." Came the computer's impersonal report, "The autodoc is ready. Upon your exodus to the Fall, the base will imminently self-destruct, as pre-programmed. Is there anything else you would like to add in your last report to the Empire?"

What did his Irken teacher say in the face of pre-battle anxiety?

 _Breathe in. Count to 3. Exhale. Breathe in. Count to 3. Exhale._

He plodded towards the autodoc. The main shield cover had been left open, presumably from where Dib or Clara had last used it when they had winkled him out for surgery. Its inner surface was clean, and shiny. Zim ran a bony claw across its black surface. It felt abysmally cold, and not exactly something he was thrilled to climb into.

"Master?" Echoed the system when it registered no reply.

"Computer." Zim began, trying his utmost to speak without croaking. He looked his best. He wanted to sound his best as well. "I request some music." And he sat on the shelf of the autodoc, feeling like he had been unplugged. He felt battered as if he had been punched repeatedly. He was unable to keep his balance, as if the blows were still coming.

"What genre of music do you require?"

"Just p-pick anything. I don't care."

"Very well."

Distantly, from the hidden speakers, faint classical music began to float into his warm warren of tubes, rooms and tunnels. Raising his right antenna had had withered at his side like a noodle, he listened to the keys of the piano and the ornate call of the violin.

He languished there, knowing that it was foolish to wait, foolish to dwell on it. Foolish to waste time.

Hesitancy wasn't part of his nature. And yet here he was, hesitating.

"Your last report, Master?" Still the computer tersely persisted. It was so very tiring. And it was enough of a final incentive to get Zim stiffly moving. He reclined beneath the dome of the autodoc's cover, and nestled in so that his PAK aligned perfectly with its port. There was a soft flash of fear, and for a moment he wanted to abort the process.

 _I am just being decommissioned._ _That is all._ He thought, trying to appease the unwonted apprehension sliding unfailingly through him. _It's no big deal! Maybe there will be nothing afterwards, or something. Who cares?_

"Good night Gir." He said. He knew he'd get no reply, and knew his robot could not possibly hear him, "Computer. Seal me in."

"You have yet to consign a full report." Was the only farewell he was to receive.

"Fine. I'll do it myself!" Zim grabbed for the metal pulley at the top, in line with his head. He clutched it in his claws, and pulled it down with moderate effort, sealing him within. Then the base went black. As per conduct, the computer began to black out each section of the base. Ultra violet lights were blotted out. Long warrens of tunnels lined in bright cables became unfathomable regions of crawling darkness. Warm incubator units turned graveyard cold. The conduit sunk into a profound, marked silence. All its internal wizardry shut down.

Even the standby lights on the TV in the house flickered off, as did the fridge in the kitchen.

Zim's entire alien cathedral had become a giant, dark mausoleum.

-x-

 _'I'm slowly drifting into slumber_  
 _Cause I have lost the force to fight_  
 _It's like a cold hand on my shoulder_  
 _I'll see you on the other side_

 _And in the arms of endless anger_  
 _Will end the story of a soldier in the dark'_

 _Woodkid - The Other Side_


	31. What happened in Montana

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

Hi guys. After that heart/soul crushing chapter, I'm hoping that the next few will be a bit more uplifting.

I know it seems impossible, given what happened. But it isn't over yet. ^^

I am dedicating this chapter to **RissyNicole ** for being a good friend, listener, supporter and for just being so genuine. You've made me gush multiple times, had me grinning days on end at all the discussions we've been having, and you've made me a much happier person. I am sorry for last chapter too. Heh. I put you through too much, all at once! ^^

* * *

 **Guest**

I know. I know. XD I screwed everyone over.

 **Phoebe**

I went to youtube immediately to check out the song, as I've never heard the artist before, and omfg the feels! The irony that you were listening to THAT song while reading THAT chapter! Ugh! I hope you've recovered a little bit since then. ;)

 **moops**

Yup. I went there. *facepalms* Eh.

 **Alexa**

Hi there Alexa! I know, I'm right there with ya! This chapter isn't going to hold a whole lot of answers just yet, but yeah, what a turn of events last chapter was! I hope I did Zim a great service by keeping him in character as best I could, and honestly, I saw it as the only way. And it was incredibly painful. Gir is now gone. Not completely from the story of course where flashbacks are concerned, but in the present time line, it's over for him. It tears me up just writing this line! Ugh!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 31 (37): What happened in Montana**

The professor did not think that he was an apt scientist. He liked to think that he was a great scientist. He was the only one brave enough and smart enough to test old and new theories almost on a daily basis, tackling hypothesises others saw as impossible or just plain mad. His inventions, on the most part, were sometimes way ahead of the current technological trend, and as such, he was deemed as a god in his discoveries but also seen as eccentric and mad by the sceptics. It was the same stigma he never wanted his son to suffer with as well. Science was the only one true way to prove to people that you were right. Sometimes the world was nothing but an audience of sceptics waiting to pull you and your dreams all the way down.

Now he was battling with Dr. Mills and his harem of nurses. They did not understand science, or even the biologic compatibility that came with it. They insisted that they knew perfectly well what they were doing, and that any interference was unlawful. So the Professor, in his wisdom, locked them out of the I.C.U room using an electronic keypad that overruled any electrical security system. Dr. Mills was soon banging his fist on the door.

"Professor Membrane! This is absurd! Let us in! That is my patient in there! You have no right!"

"Just give me ten minutes, Doctor." He replied on the other side of the door in his habitually composed mannerisms. "What I have to do is _most_ urgent."

The banging continued regardless.

Professor Membrane came over to stand inertly by his son's bed and looked down at him idly for a lasting moment. It was impossible to tell how exactly the professor was feeling, used as he was to tackling his work while hiding behind his coat collar and goggles. Dib had not woken, and remained in a state of unconsciousness. Even Dr. Mills had been unable to speculate if it was really a coma or not.

It had also hurt the professor to learn that his only son was very likely a hardened drug addict as well. Though this did not add up. There were no hypo needle holes or old scars anywhere on Dib's body to suggest that this was so. Drug addicts tended to inject localised areas on their body frequently, and suffer patented symptoms that so mirrored their drug abuse. But Dib was not showing a single one of these signs, which either meant he was a drug dealer, who hadn't used them out of duty, or he was holding onto them for someone else. Either way, it concluded that he was a drug mule of a sort. As for the hypos themselves, he had only got a look at them briefly before they were zipped up by Dr. Mills into a vacuum sealed pack labelled EVIDENCE for the police. The liquid inside them had been an alluring mixture of infinite purples and pinks, all glittery and syrupy, like stardust.

However, back in the professor's mind, on light of the information he had, he had a solid opinion that they belonged to Dib's green friend. But he could do nothing to secure them back.

"Oh son. Whatever trouble have you got into this time?" He whispered, running a tender gloved hand over his son's warm forehead. He tried to ignore the grooves from the bandages, and the sickly sweet smell of burned flesh.

Dib's glasses sat on the hospital shelf beside a clock showing quarter past three in the morning.

Clara had not gone home, though he thought she might. But she seemed skittish last he saw of her, as if she had done something terrible. Then his mind just ironed out his judgement.

 _Poor girl is in shock. Of course she'd be most upset._

He had left her last in the hospital canteen, holding a hot Styrofoam cup of coffee in her pallid hands. The professor, trying to be accommodating, had even tried offering her a bag of snacks, but she had refused to eat.

"I'll get that rascally son of mine awake! Just you see!" He had told her. But she had merely nodded, not once looking up into his goggles. Her mind and heart were elsewhere. He recognised her suffering. He had been there once before, when his wife was being treated here long ago. Only, she had made it out of the hospital in a body bag.

He paused, thinking of putting a hand on her shoulder, then resisted the idea, and went on up to the I.C.U room.

Now he stood in the dim light of the room, watching his son breathe on autopilot with the aid of the hospital ventilator and tanks. He had pushed one curtain aside above the bed so that he would watch the rampant winter winds blow. Pockets of snow currents swirled and then broke apart like magic. It was only in these times, when life weighed on the professor's shoulders, that he wished he had put his work down a little more, and tended to his family a little more. He was so used to hiding from them, hurt by past events that he found work to be his only solace.

Now he was finding how very wrong he was.

Prof. Membrane regarded the nearly empty vial in a necklace resting on Dib's collarbone, thinking that he had not seen it there last.

He shook his head, not understanding such triviality, and then turned to his suitcase. He marginally slipped off his glove just enough to imprint his thumb on its little scan slide, and then the lid popped open. From out of it extended trays, and on the trays were implements that exhaled cold, sterility from their glass surfaces into the warmth of the I.C.U room. From these bounties of scientific marvels, he selected a microscopic chip with a pair of metal pliers. He reached over towards his son, lifted up an edge of soft gauze and stuck the chip onto the side of his right forehead, onto his skin. It was a neural chip, designed to send signals down to the brain, and encourage those neuron synapses to fire out their signals to each other. Like many of the professor's inventions, this device had yet to come into the medical market due to its intrusive nature. The brain was still largely not understood by science, and there was no telling what electronic devices would do to the brain, other than risk death or seizures. But his son wasn't about to wake up all on his own any time soon.

"Come on, son. Wakey wakey now." He said, looking to the blue chip, and seeing its electrical pulses working along its tiny exterior circuits.

There was a knock on the door. The professor gave a lacklustre sigh that only revealed some of his agitation before he turned to see out of the little I.C.U door window. Gaz was there, looking back at him, or rather, squinting back at him. She looked even less amused than normal.

The professor opened the door after discharging the electronic lock, and welcomed her inside before shutting it again.

"Clara won't stop crying." She was saying, looking grimly down at her comatose brother, and then up at the window that was perpetually curtained with snow. "I _did_ try, you know. To cheer her up."

"I am sure you did." Her father said.

"Any luck?" She then asked, nodding down at her brother. Her voice was clear of emotion, but the professor knew deep down that she struggled to show how she really felt inside.

"All good things take time, my dear."

"This is all Zim's fault by the way." Gaz huffed, arms now folded. Her breath stank of all the coffee she had guzzled down a short while ago. "It _has_ to be his fault. Anything alien or weird or out of context that happens to my big, dumb brother usually means it's because of _him_."

"You don't know that for sure."

"I do." She stated stubbornly. "I don't normally get involved, because Zim's too much of an idiot to be on _my_ radar, and Dib should have known better. He had all these years to learn! Now I'm so... so mad!"

"Now now, honey! Dr. Mills and a paramedic came to me, saying that Dib had a 'child' under his wing. And that now he's run away. I believe that 'child' was Zim. He came here with my son. I believe his intentions were not... malicious. As far as I am aware, those two are good friends."

"Friends? Don't make me puke!" Gaz snapped. "You're just as blind as they are!" She then turned sharply, and pushed through the door without a second glance.

Prof. Membrane merely sighed. With one gloved hand he tenderly stroked his son's cheek. "She's just upset is all. You know how she is." He told him. He looked to the chip, wondering why it wasn't working. Wondering why Dib's brainwaves weren't responding to the neural stimuli. He daren't increase the voltages, aware of the risks he was chancing his son with.

"Come on, son! Wake up now, there's a good boy!"

He blew out a frustrated sigh. He didn't like to get emotional. Being emotional never solved anything.

He looked to the black hospital phone resting on its receiver by the window. He picked it up before he even realized he was doing it, and dialled Zim's house number, wondering if the number still worked at all. His brain held a perfect catalogue of all the numbers and names and addresses he had ever picked up in his life. One day Dib had come home from school all bruised and beat up, with twigs in his hair and tears in his eyes. But still, he had managed to smile. "Got Zim's phone number." He had told his father who had stood by the microwave at the time, waiting for a pepperoni pizza to heat up. Though he was an exceptional scientist, he had always been a shoddy cook. "Now I can prank call him all night!"

Dib had left the number on a piece of paper on the dining room table, and the professor had merely glanced at it, not paying any real attention to it, yet the numbers had remained in his head, like everything else did.

He dialled the number, wanting only for Zim to come over, and explain himself. Instead, all he got Zim's answering machine.

" _Don't leave messages! I don't want messages! I will destroy you!"_ Came Zim's curt, recorded voice. Then there was a bleep and that was it.

The professor put down the phone again, feeling that little bit more defeated.

He was not normally presented with defeat. So he did not quite know what to do in the face of it.

The professor sat by Dib's bed, holding his son's bandaged hand as tight as he dared without upsetting the heavy burns beneath.

Meanwhile, though Dib was right beside his father, his mind was so very far away. It drifted like the snow outside, never settling in one place for very long.

In that snowstorm, he took to the wheels of his car, pushed on the throttle, and had it going up and up into the frozen dark. The radio was on. It was playing country music. With a quick jab he hit a button and it was now playing classical jazz. He rolled his eyes. It would do.

 _xxx Many years earlier Xxx_

It was brutally snowing.

The hail chaffed against the windshield of the Voot as hard as stone, and it bounced right off, snow and hail flinging from the ship in a turbulent spray as the Irken pilot ploughed on through it indifferently. Truthfully so, the weather had come out of nowhere. Zim had thought he'd be ahead of the blizzard, and had decided this night would be better, rather than leaving it to the last minute. For the sky had been expansively clear, and dark, with low clouds: perfect for observation AND cover. The stars had been prescient guiding lights: frosty cold and nostalgic in the black, even if he ignored the sentimentality of such distant suns.

He was also not supposed to be doing this.

Because he was on a mission: a mission of espionage. This struck out against the promise Dib had so woefully made with him, and it had structured their reluctant relationship as a single strand of webbing might hold a fly.

To Zim, he liked to think of it as just a 'field test' and if Dib never found out, then what was so wrong? Besides, no human should ever dictate what he could and could not do. Never! But the thought of the wire trap, and what Dib could have nearly done made him nervously touch his broken antenna.

Far, far below them sprawled a sleepy city. Their lights seemed to be perfect reflection of the stars: cars wormed their way through tiny creeks, and tall buildings looked sprawled about like comical Lego towers.

Zim viewed this 'colony' with great repugnance. "How dare they vastly colonize such a filthy planet, making my life so much more difficult! The nerve of these two-legged creatures! How does Dib put up with himself?"

"Wait!" Said Gir, who sat comfortably beside him. "We're two-legged!"

"Yes, but we're the different kind! The better kind!"

"Awww, right!"

A hydraulic pressure warning lit up on Zim's Voot dashboard. Other than the rocking of the wind that made him feel like he was flying through a sandstorm, the ship was running smoothly. He ran a claw up the dashboard screen, asking for a deeper diagnostic. "Uh! It's probably one of those valves leaking again! Always with the leaks!"

He was trying to drift above the cloud cover, and dipping down every so often to snap shots of the world below, and focus in on hot spots in the city for anything industrious or interesting. He wanted to make sure the humans remained prehistoric in their thinking and their technological awareness. He could sleep easier that way. Less stress that way.

He also wanted to find a setting for a secondary base. A new place of operations. A new beginning! Being as short-sighted as he was, he had not prepared for the cold here.

Even now, in the cargo hold, the braces were strapped to the wall, ready to be used. If it had not been for those ugly things, he may never have come up with that very same solution to help him walk.

Gir was kicking his legs up and down in boredom. He was never very good at keeping still for long flights, or even short ones for that matter. "Can we make a stop and some have tacos? And soup? I would like me some soup."

"For the last time, Gir, we're in a ship and humans are the enemy. What does that tell you?"

"That I'm hungry?" He replied, now drumming his hands on his metal legs. "I'm booooored."

Zim just huffed irritably, as he was usually taken to do when Gir started up on one of his requests.

The blizzard was suddenly smacking into the Voot from the east as if it was personally at war with a ship that dared to fly in a storm. For a moment Zim lost control as the windshield became sodden with white.

 _Got to get above all this snow!_

He hung down on the sharp lever and the Voot turned to its new vertical position. But it stalled. Something blew on the ship's left side. Little red warnings were promptly engaged, and they flooded his once calm purple dashboard screen in Irken jargon.

 **Left engine overheating. Coolant leak. Hydraulic valve leak D3.**

Zim cursed. It had to be the same coolant leak he had tried to fix earlier! Had he forgotten to recap it? He had been distracted, and had gone on to read Gir a bedtime story!

It was not the first time he had noticed his mind beginning to slip on his own memories. The shock of losing the function of his antenna had left him in dismay for weeks to a whole year, and he blindly blamed any mental imbalance on that.

Now he wasn't so sure.

 **Trailing smoke.** Came the next forwarded Irken warning on his dashboard.

Currently, the cabin was blinking a surreal, dizzying red that did not help with Zim's failing equilibrium. He had never suffered ship-induced nausea before, and now he had it. Zim meanwhile was looking at the readouts in horror. He was the furthest from home he had ever been. He could not afford to land!

"No! Not now! Not here! Not with all those... people down there!"

His insecurities seemed to clamour at him all at once. His Voot was his bubble of safety, independence! His stability! His armour!

"Let's eject!" Gir cried happily, throwing up his arms as if he was already zooming up into heaven.

"No, it's just a minor error! It can be fixed! All things can be fixed!"

There followed another implosion: louder than the first that rocked the whole Voot.

 **Stabilizers failing.**

 **Life support compromised.**

The ship cantered on a spin.

The snow made the Voot splutter and rock now that the stabilizers no longer held it steady. Zim curbed on the lever, forcing the Voot down. He had to make an improvised landing, and he wasn't happy about it.

As the Voot became unsteady in his claws, he tried to dip it below the worst of the hail, and before him stretched frozen, wind-swept plains, woodlands and sleepy towns.

He tried to aim for somewhere safe, but where really, was safe? His only ally now was that of the night.

Zim dimmed the lights, hoping no one was looking upwards as his ship oscillated and groaned.

"All things can be fixed!" He kept spluttering, trying as he was to get his computer to run a deeper diagnostic and arrest the damage.

"We're going down, DOWN!" Gir squealed delightfully as if they were in one of those one dollar toy rides that one could usually find outside a drug or food store that attracted the attention of all the five year olds, and Gir.

 **Coolant leak. Coolant leak.**

 **Left turbo Engine overheated. Left turbo Engine compromised.**

The ground was coming up way too fast. But Zim refused to eject. Refused to abandon the Voot.

Out here, in this hell of a cold, wintry landscape, it was all he had, and he did not want to be booted upwards for miles in a bubble equipped with a paltry jet.

Stubbornly, he clung to the controls, trying to ram up the nose of the Voot before it topped into the ground like a wild torpedo and smashed to a hundred bits.

Before he made contact, a strange thought occurred to him out of nowhere:

 _Why do I always end up accidently destroying everything?_

The Voot clipped a pine tree and the ship swivelled brutally off course. Zim lost control, and the ship smacked front-first into the cold, concrete ground, flinging Zim forwards in his seat.

 _Had I forgotten to buckle myself in too?_

 _Have I ever buckled myself in?_

 _No. I don't think I ever have._

Zim opened one eye, then the other.

Had... had he made it?

Was he still alive?

Had he been out for two seconds? Or was it three?

He could hear the warnings still on repeat, and see as much as feel the red light pounding through the cabin and through his skull. Only, a strange pain was pounding through him too. At first he thought it was just the sync of the cabin lights, sure that he had concussed himself and that he was just disorientated.

Helplessly he spluttered up a cough. A nasty, coppery taste filled his mouth.

"Oooh." Said Gir in his tinny voice. "You're one with the dashboard. I wanna take a picture!"

His vision cleared before him, little by little, as if he was trying to see through muddy waters. Then the waters got clearer until the world before him sprung upwards in razor-sharp focus. He was on the dashboard, and the dashboard was dappled in green.

When Zim tried to sit up, something was hooked to his chest, preventing him from leaning away. He looked down, and saw that one of the major levers was not just on his chest, but _inside_ it. His ribs had done pretty much nothing to prevent the lever's unwelcome admission into his body.

 _Oh. Whoops_

He tried not to fluster into a state of perpetual panic.

Around him, the Voot was groaning with heat, and great lashes of steam were dissipating into the night air.

"Okay. Don't panic." He croakily whispered to himself. "You've been in worse situations, I uh... think. Just pull yourself out. Let myself heal. Groan about it afterwards."

He braced his arms on the dashboard as he tried to draw himself away. He could feel the metal of the lever grease its way slowly out of him, centimetre by centimetre. Each new length of lever that oozed out dripped in blood. He could feel his PAK burning with frenzied activity as it put all its emergency power into healing him.

He felt Gir wind his little hands around his elbow, and attempted to pull him back as well. This only served to increase Zim's panic. Gir's pulling may be too sudden to be of any help.

The end of the lever, wet and softened with bloodied tissue, finally emerged out of him, and Zim flailed in the cabin, swatting at the controls in a turbulent haze of surrealism and impending doom. The windshield opened and Zim threw himself out of the confines, landing in the snow. There he lay, feeling the blood swell out of the hole in his chest. He was so hot in fevered panic that he didn't even feel the white flakes land on his skin.

Gir stood by him after clambering out of the Voot as well. "You made a mess." Was his conclusion.

"Shut up, Gir. I'm trying to heal." He croakily replied. Forcing his body to rest was good for the PAK, so it could better focus its energies on the task of healing. Zim was surprised he wasn't being forced into unconsciousness. "Gir..." He said over time as the wind blew and the snow peppered his vision, "Do a perimeter check."

"Yes, my Lord!" Gir saluted, his eyes changing into crimson optics before going and doing just that while Zim lay sprawled in the snow beside a smoking Voot.

As he healed, the worst pain passed in seconds, and the hole closed over. In relief, Zim started to breathe normally, having not been aware that he had been straining to breathe in the first place and the PAK pulsed out a much brighter pink.

Stiffly he sat up. The blood was around where he lay, but it wasn't as much as he dreaded it would be.

Gir returned, looking pleased when he saw Zim sitting up. "No one visiting!" He said. "But I met same coyotes! They were nice, and offered me out to tea!"

He rose to his feet, holding onto the side of the Voot for support. "Activate the perimeter sensors, Gir. We can't afford to be seen!"

He began to scrutinise the ship. The compromised engine was too hot, and one of the major coolant cables had melted.

"Great!" He flung his arms up in frustration. "It's got to cool down and only _then_ can I begin manual repairs! Blasted Voot! Blasted snow!" He kicked at the ship with disdain.

"Yay for me, yay for you!" Gir shouted, dancing about on the snow.

"And it's fucking cold!" He hugged his arms around his chest as he began to shiver. "What timing!"

"Yes!" Giggled his deranged child.

Spooked with sudden paranoia, Zim looked about him. It was dark, but that didn't hamper his vision. No one was around. Behind him was woodland that thrashed in tune with the exhalation of the storm and the ground was thick with snow. Each step he made left a track. To the west of him was a human settlement. Zim mentally calculated that the settlement was approximately two miles away. He could see the lights blinking behind the veil of blinding snow.

"My... uh... braces! Those ugly things! Give them to me now, Gir!"

Gir saluted and opened the little cargo hold. He retrieved the equipment and plonked them before his master with a daft smile on his face. Zim approached them in the same fashion he did every time: with dread and keen malcontent. He slipped in each leg in its bracket and then bent down to fasten the gages to make sure he wouldn't slip out of them. Once they were on, he could stomp around quite freely, and leaving even _bigger_ tracks in the snow.

Utilizing his PAK tools he opened a cable panel to access the coolant leak directly and began to stitch together frayed and damaged components with careful precision. But this created noise as he used his handheld tools, and flashing sparks that could attract anyone and anything.

Gir was busy building a snow Irken. He got a mound of snow and started rolling it around, making the mound bigger and bigger as it picked up snow. He used this as his base, and then made another mound on top for the chest, and then a block of snow for the angular head. For the antennae he used two crooked sticks, and two different sized stones (one big, the other too small) for the eyes. Then he created a dopey smile using his thumb. He was giggling. When Zim looked over, glossing the robot with a mean stare, Gir pointed at the snow Irken.

"You need to be more like him! And be happy!"

Zim grinded his teeth together. He looked murderous and slightly insane, for his appearance was less than savoury when he had a crooked antenna, wore braces on his legs and had blood down his uniform.

But, using self-control he normally never possessed, Zim focused his anger into something productive rather than just exploding and went back to the delicate repair work which was made all the more difficult when he was trembling with cold.

His right antenna picked up the low drone of a car passing by on the road a little too close for comfort. He had brought no spare disguise with him, for he hadn't been planning on being spending any time on ground-level with these dirt-apes. Now he was all too aware of how much he glowed in the dark. His PAK was glowing brighter pink due to his internal healing, and his eyes also had a keen, bright red shine which made concealment very hard. Not to mention that Gir glowed too.

And he did not want to be forced to hide in the bushes like some fucking squirrel.

As soon as he thought this, he heard the loud, explosive yip of a nearby coyote which caused Zim to cry out in alarm before leaping for the nearest bush.

Perfectly at ease in such a hostile environment, Gir whisked out an ice tart from one of the coolers in the cargo hold and started to lick and then eat it with relish. Zim only scowled as he sat crouching behind the bush. It was really hard trying to ignore Gir's idiocy and leisurely attitude. It was definitely a job requirement.

Zim rose up from the bushes and plodded on over with the braces. He had no weapon on him, again because he thought this would be a quick, short little trip and no one would be the wiser. In truth, he had simply forgotten the Absolute. It sat on the table in the kitchen where he had last left it.

After about fifteen tense minutes of battling against the cold and trying to ward off encroaching paranoia, his dedication paid off. The engine's damage had been patched, the cables were stinted and the coolant leak had been arrested. It was no permanent fix, but the botch-job would be enough to get him home so long as he didn't push the Voot too hard.

As he was ruminating, as he often did nowadays, Gir climbed into the cabin and started playing with the buttons. The windshield dropped down; sealing in the robot, and shutting Zim out.

"Gir? What are you doing? Get out of there! Stop messing with the controls! Someone's going to notice!"

Only when the Voot's engines started up did Zim _really_ panic.

"Gir! Stop this instant! I command you to get out!" He went to climb up onto the Voot to access the emergency cockpit override button when the ship exploded upwards, knocking Zim clear. The twin engines streamed with blue vapour as the ship vertically climbed through the white storm. Then it did an incredible somersault through the air, twice before continuing its arduous climb. Zim was back to standing in the snow, shaking his fist at the sky. "Nooo!" He screeched. "GIR! Don't leave your Master! Come back!" His shouts were being torn apart by the shrieking winds.

And Gir did not come back.

Gir was having the time of his life.

Zim stared upwards at the sky for awhile, shivering in the cold blizzard with his arms tightly hugging his chest, certain Gir would see the error of his ways and come right back for him.

Two minutes turned into five minutes.

Five minutes became ten.

Zim's toes were frozen and he was fed up of his broken antenna painfully zipping back and forth in the wind. It was giving him horrific migraines.

More and more often, Zim hunted through the darkened, snow-bleached world with his eyes, paranoid he would be seen by the enemy that was the human collective. He could just about hear more coyotes in the distance if he lifted his one antenna up against the wind, but only their shrillest of yips and yaps. They sounded like hellish hyenas, whooping and screaming in the hollering gale.

He wanted to be brave. But he was not sure he could.

"Gir!" He pensively whined, looking up at the blackened heavens. _This is a disaster!_

He decided that he hated the cold more than he hated the rain, or even germs.

"Uh! The things I have to do!"

 _Think, think soldier! You're stranded in hostile country! Think back to your training! What did the Elites tell you?_

It was hard to think.

Hard to establish his focus.

When he tried to use the communicator in his PAK to call Gir, he could get nothing but static. He was too far from his base's satellite all the way back in Lincoln.

Hugging himself to keep warm, Zim straggled through the snow in his heavy braces, using the local flora as cover. Now and then a car would drive on by, its powerful headlights cutting a yellowed path before it. They were big, ugly and loud machines that thrashed along the road, sending showers of snow on either side of their tires.

Zim ducked low whenever he saw one approaching, but due to his deafness he couldn't quite hear the quieter cars purring alongside the bigger, larger trucks and range rovers.

 _Got to DO something! Or I'll fucking freeze!_

This cold was also not good for his late healing. His recovery had to slow down as his PAK struggled to regulate his normal temperature. The only thing keeping him going was his anger as he cogitated on how best he could punish Gir.

Across the shiny road slick with new ice was a pay phone. This pay phone happened to be near a garbage can, and a bus stop. As it was in the middle of the night, the bus stop and phone booth were empty, but as they were public places, they were suitably lit up by internal lighting provided by the State. They looked like cosy fires in the distance, and, attracted to the light like his ancestral bugs, Zim edged his way to the margin of the road, looking hopelessly across at the phone booth.

It was so close, but in order to reach it, he had to brave the road.

He hung by some bushes and a lanky old tree withered of leaves as he stood and deliberated over his situation. The cold was getting to him. His hands had now joined in with the numbness and his feet felt like blocks of ice. The braces were the only things keeping him walking.

Another car approached from the distance where the road dipped, and its cones of light jabbed down into Zim's eyes as ardently as sun beams. The Irken closed his eyes, but the after-effects of the twin disks followed him in the darkness. He staggered backwards, feeling for the tree with his claws. He bowed behind it, just as the car went sailing past.

The phone! He had to reach the phone!

He peered back round the tree, the cones of light still throbbing in each eye as he tried to blink them away.

No one was coming. All he had for company was the screaming wind, and the distant yap of the coyotes.

 _Do it! Do it now!_

He braved the open road, and goose-stepped at an awkward run as much as the braces would allow.

Once he had reached the other side, he flew his arms up at the small success. It helped knock down some of his insecurities, but only some.

He hobbled over to the brightly lit phone booth and went to pull the door open. It was heavy, but he flung it aside and went in. The door shunted to a close, sealing him inside the glass bubble. His broken antenna hung from his head, no longer harassed by the irksome winds. The migraine was leaving him, and he was better able to concentrate.

But the fear remained, heightening to such degrees he could feel himself tightening with apprehension. Whatever he had to do, he had to do it fast before he was seen.

The phone was docked in a vertical receptacle of some kind and beside it were lots of buttons assigned to numbers. The whole panel was grotty with grime, fingerprints and rust. Zim grimaced at the obvious filth. Humans were so DIRTY!

Because the phone was a little too high to reach, he snapped out one of his PAK legs and unhooked it so that it fell gracefully into his gloved claws. He then raised it to his right antenna. All he got from it was a faint buzzing sound.

He squared up the numbers on the panel with a scowl. Gir had no telephone number, because Gir had no damn phone. But Dib had a phone. And Zim, getting more and more forgetful every day, happened to know his number, only because he had high hopes of prank calling the bastard when he was bored.

He began to cough, and he raised his free hand to catch the blood spits that came out of his mouth.

Then Zim heard another car on the foreseeable approach. He ducked low, the phone cord extending downwards with him as he clutched it. But the car kept on going, even though he must have been in full sight of the driver.

This only enhanced the very difficult decision he had to make.

Calling up THE Dib was so wrong in so many ways. But he had broken many of his own principles by making a stupid promise, and of course, being out here would only alert Dib to the fact that Zim was up to no good.

Zim used the same PAK strut to press all of the corresponding buttons. But instead of getting a dial tone, he instead got a robotic female voice. "You do not have sufficient credit. Please add a toll charge, or use a credit card to pay for any outgoing calls."

Zim began to strangle the phone with his freezing claws. "Curse you, phone woman! I need to call the Dib! Listen to me!" But the phone went back to its desultory drone again.

 _Money. I need money!_

He tried plugging a cord from his PAK into the machine, like he did back on Irk. He had digital credit! Enough for about a hundred ice tarts, let alone one little outgoing call! But there was no port for him to slide into, and he stamped one braced foot in frustration.

His sharp, calculating eyes began to hunt around for any human leftovers for possible dropped monies. He didn't see any.

Leaving the phone hanging by its cord, Zim left the booth and back into the freezing winter cold. As much as he braced for it, it seemed to chill him even more.

Back to hugging his chest, he looked around at the snow, hunting for any shiny change.

Zim kicked out a few stones from the white mounds, and some bright screws, but no money.

He looked across at the trash can with disappointment.

His skin was only just beginning to sting from the steady contact with the snow. And there was no Voot careering back to get him at top speed.

Zim's fists clutched into tight little balls. "I'm going to murder that little robot!" He promised under his breath.

Sickeningly, he approached the trash can. With a heave he pushed it over, causing a ruckus. The metal lid clanged on the stone walkway beneath the snow, and this caused some nearby racoons to scatter.

 _Here I am. An invader. Reduced to peering through common human Earth rubbish for change! And for what? To call my enemy, that's WHAT!_

Zim started searching through the rubbish, looking for any nickels or quarters. There were slimy banana skins, empty cans of soda, packets of beef jerky, tissues and packets of bubblegum. His spooch turned at the smell and several times he had to stoop to one side, holding himself when he felt close to vomiting.

He found a single, shiny quarter. It had fallen out of a bean tin, and he only noticed it when it lay shining beneath the street lamp. He jerked it greedily into his hand as if it held much power.

The Elite went back into the phone booth and slammed the quarter into the slot before re-dialling Dib's phone number. At this point he was inches from venting out his frustration with screams, or very soon he would be reduced to kicking at the glass walls or at the snow. He wanted to break things. Lots of things before he would start to feel better.

The call went through, and Zim listened to the dial tones, tentatively daring to hope, and hating himself for hoping at the same time.

"Uh, yeah? Dib Membrane."

Just hearing his very voice sent Zim spiking into a rage he physically had to repress before he blurted something he would later regret. "Dib human. I don't have time for banal niceties. Come and get me, would you? That is a direct order."

"What? Come and 'get you?' Are you lost again?"

"Lost? I AM NOT LOST!" He took a breath, forcing himself to chill out. In seconds another car could come along, and this time the driver might happen to notice him, and he might happen to capture him and dump him in the trunk of his car and he might happen to never see the light of day ever again.

He heard Dib blast out a sigh on the other end of the line. "Do you know what time it is? Oh, never mind. Where are you?"

Zim's mind braked to a dead halt.

Where was he?

He had no idea.

"Um... Montana." He said. This, at least, he knew. It was all he knew. This was terribly shameful for an Irken soldier as, by default, they were supposed to know their exact location down to its coordinates. And he had not bothered to look it up at all; he had merely flown there, blinded as he was by snowfall.

"Mon...Montana?" Dib's stammer worried him a little. So what if he was in Montana?

"Yes." Zim snapped, getting angry again. "Hurry it up, would you?"

"Zim, do you know how far that is from Lincoln? How the hell did you wind up in Montana? Wait... you didn't use the Voot did you? You... didn't... you didn't crash... did you?"

"Of course NOT!" Zim yelled into the receiver so much so, that Dib had to pull back from the phone on the other side, "I'm just having a technical glitch, all right?"

"Zim. I'm not driving a thousand miles to Montana. Do you realize how long that would take me?"

"In your pathetic Earth vehicle? One... one hour?" He hoped.

"Try fifteen hours, Zim. And it would cost me $122 in gas! Maybe more."

"Fifteen hours? You have... ugh... that ship! Tak's ship! Just hop in it, would you?"

"You ripped out the cables. I couldn't replace them."

"It's so easy, a baby could fix it! I thought you were smart-ISH!"

"Look, Zim. I can't argue all day. I have human stuff to do. Laundry. Taking out the trash. Stuff like that. Just... rescue yourself for once, okay?"

* * *

 **Dib07:** And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the end of another chapter. I know, where the hell am I going with this? Where indeed! XD I hope that was a bit more uplifting! The next chapter is... ah sod it... I gotta shut up before I practically dump out spoilers! And this wasn't a cliffhanger for once!

See ya! XD


	32. Whatever it Takes

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

 **Edit:**

I am really sorry if any of you were disappointed in this chapter, it was not my intention. I could not find a way to change it. So I am sticking it back up here for now.

 **RissyNicole** I have thrown the entire unedited chapter up for you to hopefully enjoy ^^ Just try not to strain your eyes at the sheer mass of content! Thanks for sticking with me, and giving me some 'Zim' motivation! He hits super hard, man! Next time I am gonna need a titanium metal shield!

x

This week Imma gonna dedicate this confusing as heck chapter to **Piratemonkies64** and **Rocky Rooster** and **Invader Johnny!** You three have been with me since its early days when this story could still have been a disaster in the making! Here's to you three for being eternally patient, with nothing but praise and love for this nightmare of a story aka rollercoaster of mad emotions, many tears and then some! Bless you for your consistent dedication! This story has only made it thus far because of YOU!

* * *

 **Guest**

Heh! God knows what you're gonna think now! Lolz! I hope you enjoy this update more than I did!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 32 (38): Whatever it Takes**

His left hand was twitching.

It took a moment for his father to notice, staring as he had at the white headboard of the hospital bed. He drew back into himself with a jerk and saw the bandaged fingers jittering every so lightly upon the cotton sheets. Removing his glove, the professor snatched them gently into his own hand.

"Yes son! You can do it! I _know_ you can!"

xxx

"Rescue yourself for once, okay?"

That really chagrined Zim. His already tightly-wound disposition tightened ever more so until he swore he could even feel his very bones stiffen in respective malice. It did not escape him that he was standing in braces for the disabled. And it did not escape him that he was here, lost in Montana because of Dib's undecided violence. If it was not the trap leaving him maimed, he wouldn't even be here, scrambling for solutions.

"I... I hate you Dib!" Was all his muddled brain could spit out, even though it was not really what he wanted to say. "These awful braces hurt! I can't walk unless I'm in these mangy things! And... and it's cold! I hate snow! You hearing me, Dib? I hate your Earth weather! It's almost as retarded as you are! Now obey me and pick me up!"

There was silence on the other end, and Zim was grotesquely distressed. Had the Dib hung up on him? Or... or was he just so deaf he wasn't able to hear his insulting reply?

 _Very well then_ , he thought. So he added: "Twiddle your thumbs all you want, because I have come up with a new fiendish plan of all fiendish plans! I am staring at a human right now that I have selected for destruction! And I will kill him Dib! Say hi, human!" And he squealed in a little fake 'hi' impersonation that was supposed to sound like the captured human but it still sounded far too much like himself.

He heard Dib sigh. It sounded very exasperated.

"If I do this for you, space monster, I want you to do something for me for once." Dib finally said, not being tricked for one moment. "I want you to fix Tak's ship. I want to be able to fly in it again. How's that for a deal?"

Zim vacillated. Dib had just offered to help. For a price. No doubt the mention of the braces had once again highlighted his guilt, and humans always seemed stooped in regret as if it was a physical thing all humans carried around with them. But fixing that old ship might not be so great. He would be building up Dib's old armaments. Giving him weaponry, and a means to probe outwards to space in Irken technology. Dib could just reverse engineer the ship, which meant taking it apart, and Zim did not understand why he had not done that yet. What Zim failed to understand was that the ship held too much sentimental value to the investigator, and that destroying it to learn of its mechanics was too steep a price.

Regardless, the ship needed Irken repair work, which meant Irken parts, of which Dib did not possess.

"Impertinent Dib!" He shouted down the phone as another bellow of wind shook the exterior of the booth, "Why should I fix it? It's amusing, to have you grounded. It brings me the greatest satisfaction."

Dib sounded sulky. "If that's the way you want it, Zim. Good luck with the bears and the wolves. I'll see you around I guess, in a museum, when they find your half eaten remains."

"No! Wait!" He cried, suspecting that the insolent human was about to hang up on him. "Fine! I'll repair Tak's ship! I'll give it extra lasers if that's what you want, and extra head room for your ever-expanding head! Now come and get me!" As he spoke into the phone, his eyes suddenly jerked into the dark recesses of snow beyond the glass of the phone booth, now suspecting wild bears to come and gobble him up.

"I can't believe I am doing this." He still sounded sulky on the other end of the phone, as he possibly was imagining the many roads he'd have to traverse. "I'm going to hire out one of my dad's hydro cars. It'll get there faster than my conventional Toyota but it'll burn so much fuel I won't be able to drive it back. It's not like I can just fill it back up at the nearest gas station."

Zim didn't care about the details, or the technicalities. "Just hurry it up, will you? I..."

He was inexplicably cut off.

"You are out of credit." Said that same anonymous female voice that commanded the services of the phone. "Please insert more credit to continue to use our services."

Zim tried to throw the phone to the floor, but the cord didn't allow it to reach that far down. It just bobbed wildly up and down, like it was on a bungee, and smacked twice against the glass pane. These hard, solid knocks only seemed to pronounce the greater loneliness and isolation pressing down on Zim. He twirled around, and confronted the glass door. He opened it, and stared, wide-eyed at his snowy world. Leaves of white cascaded downwards in their wild millions, confusing the landscape. He knew he had to tunnel somewhere and hide. He could use a flare from his PAK once he suspected Dib may be close by, but he had no idea how long that would be and he had not stocked any extra flares. He just had the one, used to hail his S.I.R unit for a visual display for help. But that's if the S.I.R unit in question was intelligent when, quite frankly, Gir wasn't.

He stood to the left side of the old bus shelter, cuddling his arms to his chest as a brisk slap of wind buffeted him almost off his feet. The braces weighed him down, and he was sure that if was not in them; he'd be whisked around like a windblown leaf.

Helplessly his eyes strayed to the inconsolable heavens above, hoping he'd see Irken lights as the Voot approached him from the snowy dark. But it never came. It was not the first time he had been stranded, either by himself or by Gir, but he'd always found some way out of the chaos, and found his way back home. Leaning on Dib again was not his forte, and it riddled him with shame that he had had no other choice but to ask for help.

His mission had gone to pot. No way would he build up a new base here, not with such wild weather.

Why couldn't he have just stayed home? And gone over the Voot again, leaving it up to the computer to perform better diagnostics?

His mission status report would be left once more as a solid, ugly blank.

xxx

"Dad? Stupid Zim has crash landed _somewhere_ in Montana. Can I burrow your hydro car to get me there by any chance?"

Again he was on the phone, to his dad. His father had luckily been able to answer, as he was on a very rare tea break.

"Of course, son! It's been sitting in my garage for months anyway. The keys are in the glove box. Say hi to your little green friend for me, would you?"

Dib's eyelids drew downwards by a degree or two, used to his father's ignorance. "Yeah, yeah. Sure."

xxx

The old Elite darted across the black, oily road again, trying to hear for more cars. In the implacable logic of his mind, he imagined hundreds of cars on route to his very location, and if not cars, than animals. Lots and lots of them. Wild bears, lions, dogs, wolves. This place was untamed and quite far from human civilisation and its mediocre industrial aspects. They'd all find him, and eat him. He'd fight the entire inhabitants of the Montana forests if that was what it took, but for now he just wanted to huddle up and hide someplace.

The wind and the snow were so rampant and loud that he could not hear anything else. His left antenna was a useless appendage now, its split end just a frazzled leftover, but his right one was being knocked around by the wind, and he could barely orientate himself, even with the help of the braces. He did not hear the car approach until it was almost on him, lost as he was in the storm. It was only when he saw the great crescendo of headlights land fully upon him that he took note, and plunged into a patch of thorny bushes.

The car braked nosily, squealing in the snow, and a man stepped out of it. Zim lowered himself further to the floor beneath the bushes, his breath hot on his tongue. Terror seized him utterly.

"What was that?" Spoke another voice from inside the car. There were but yards away. He could smell the mint on the man's breath as he chewed gum, and smell the stink of dog and gun oil on his tough winter jacket.

"I... I don't know. It looked like a... small green thing."

"Get back in the car. I'm cold." Spoke the female in the back.

"No honey. I don't think so." He turned to get something out of the car. When he pulled it out, Zim grimly saw that it was a rifle. "I saw it go into those bushes."

"Leave it alone." She said. "It was probably nothing. It's just a creepy area is all."

The man hesitated. Zim could see that he wanted to walk out and start searching, protected by the old gun he carried. But other duties held him, and the man clambered reluctantly back into the car. Zim failed to quieten the hard blow of relief that he exhaled. His terror softened, but it did not ease all the way until the car had driven on past him, disappearing into the heavy plumes of snow.

 _That was way too close._

 _Way, way too close._

Was Dib even coming? Did he say 'yes I'm coming over right now?'

The call had ended quite abruptly. What if that stupid human wasn't going to come fetch him until he rose up from bed the next morning?

"There are no wolves or bears here!" He told himself, trying to chuckle to help iron out any surmounting fear. But it didn't work, and the wind screamed, slicing his forced laughter in half.

He had to consider the inevitable. If Dib didn't come, he was stuck here. Either that, or hijack a car that had pedals he couldn't reach, or steal a bicycle, all of which had to be achieved stealthily. For he had no disguise on him. In his haste to come out here and spy for a new base, he hadn't thought of bringing it with him.

Just as he was deciding on clambering out the bushes to find somewhere warmer to freeze, he heard the long, splitting howl of a wolf. It echoed upwards it seemed, rising on the winds into a forlorn cry of wildness. Zim shuddered, hands clasped to his shoulders, eyes big and wide in transcending fear. He quickly released a hand to feel his flat pockets for a weapon, and then opened out his PAK, scrambling blindly inside it for something to use in defence. He knocked aside the transponder, whisked it out, and started shouting for Gir. But all he got in kind was a crackling mess of static that somehow made him feel a whole lot worse. As he had feared, he was too far away from his master satellite dish at home.

"Gir! You fool! Come back for your Master! It's cold! I might expire pretty soon! And then you'll be sorry!"

There was no answer. Zim threw it to the ground, stomping on it viciously until he checked his rage. But it was too late. It was all in bits in the snow, covered in little triangular boot prints. The cold was also producing an ever slight wary ache in his chest, and Zim suspected that it was because his blood might be chilling too fast. If that were to happen, the processors in his PAK would slow down, and then the blood supply might coagulate before freezing. To remedy this, he internally demanded his PAK to worker harder, and open up heating elements to release into his bloodstream to smooth the blood transaction. It worked, for a time, and he felt warmer, as did his muscles. But, funnily enough, the ache in his chest persisted.

 _Okay, think soldier, think! You've been left stranded! No big deal! Potential reinforcements on the way. Must hold out! Must dig for shelter!_

He looked around, hearing a second howl strain into the night. It caused him to stiffen, his widening eyes casting all about him, trying to spy for shadows. His wild imagination took flight, and he pictured himself being mobbed by wolves. They'd pin him down, and rip him apart with relish. Then Dib would arrive in some glossy car, only to find his bloodied PAK in the snow.

Panting, in fear, Zim dived for a snow bank, and began cutting into it with his claws. The PAK gave his body warmth, and this powered his muscles, enabling him to dig a suitable tunnel in minutes. He disappeared down its throat, still digging. The wind howled right behind him, and he could imagine the wolves right outside, ready to snap him up. He mentally promised he'd dangle Gir from a cliff later, by his foot, and then let him go.

The temperature was a little higher in this little snow cave than it was outside, but still Zim huddled into the far wall, shivering. The wind whispered and bellowed, sometimes exhaling down the freshly made tunnel, and sometimes beckoning overhead. At least his hurting left antenna could now rest easily at the back of his head, finally unadulterated by the bullying winds.

Another wolf howl rose up, from far far away, but to Zim it was unreasonably close.

 _I should not be afraid of any beast! They have no weapons to speak of! Nothing close to match my reputed skills!_

But even so, he was afraid.

His heating elements went suddenly offline, far quicker than they were supposed to. He knocked a fist into the side of the PAK to get it humming again, like he was dealing with a stubborn old computer that kept locking up. After a moment, the heating element kicked back in, and his anxiety softened, but only by a degree.

His PAK was showing signs of being not wholly reliable. And this frightened him more than any wolf could. And an elderly bug facing such cold weather wasn't helping.

"Come on Dib!" He repeated to himself some ten minutes later. "Come on. Dib!"

His heating element prematurely ran dry once more, and after some rather vigorous taps on his PAK, they didn't chug back online. So he sat in the near-dark of his snow dome, bathed by the fairy pink lights of his PAK.

"Come on Dib." He now whimpered, his voice choking in sudden homesickness.

Dib was right. He should have given his mission a rest. And it had nothing to do with the promise. Or the lacking urges to destroy.

He was still overconfident in his assurances of knowing planet Earth, when really he still had no idea. And this monumental backfire in his plans only served to increase the frustration in his own abilities. He knew deep down that something was wrong with him, and paradoxically, he didn't know at all what it was. And Zim did not wish to come to terms with anything that might suggest a lack of strength. He had stayed on his stubborn path, because the mission was all he knew. It was his comfort, as much as his purpose. As soon as he sunk away from it, he was lost.

Minutes turned to hours. Zim's integral PAK clock told him Irk time, Earth time and any time zone he so wished to know; and it told him that it was now two o'clock in the morning. Every so often Zim would duck out of his little cavern, and peer out into the wind and snow, judging if he should use his singular flare. Then he would shuffle back inside again, mind freshly awash with defeat.

"Gir, you little monster." He croaked.

At twenty two minutes to three, he couldn't take the cold any longer. He crawled out from his little hidey hole, pointed his flare gun to the sky, and fired. He watched it fly upwards, feeling strangely detached from everything, and saw the red bleeding gash of light as it ascended, leaving a trail of glittery pink fumes as it went. As he grew colder, he grew weaker, and he demanded more sustenance from the PAK. The cogs and the tubes delivered, but every so often there'd be a hitch in its programming, and the fluids and compounds to better enhance his biology did not reach his body, or if it did, it would be late in arriving.

"Come on, Dib worm."

The PAK too had run out of anticonvulsant depressants, and as such, he was shuddering so hard he could no longer grip anything. And due to lack of blood flow, his hands and feet were numb with cold.

If a wolf came and ate him now, it would be a relief.

 _Walk around, dammit! Increase circulation! The PAK will respond better!_

So, in spite of the risks of being seen, he got up and started walking round in a circle by his little dugout hole, shivering so tremendously it made his arthritic joints flare up in pain. Above him, the pink flare brightened, holding fast in the heavens like a tiny, bright eye. Amazingly, another flare rose up, many miles away in the dark snowy sky. This one was a bright, incandescent blue, its glow stretching out for many miles more.

At first Zim believed it might be Gir, on his way back to him. But then he had second guesses, and realized that it was Dib's colour. His heart soared, and his PAK functionality increased, brightening its pink ports.

"Dib!" He began to call. "Dib? Where are you?"

He looked to the blue flare again. It was almost as high as his pink variant. Dib must have seen his flare, and mirrored the signal with one of his own.

Zim crunched through the snow in his heavy braces, struggling through the shakes his body kept producing. His teeth were chattering away, and water was starting to solidify to ice along the bottom flex of his antennae. He had never been so damn cold. He swore that nitrogen was warmer!

Another blue flare rose up, this one much closer than the first. Its blue light was printed in the centre of Zim's ethereal fuchsia orbs. He did not want to turn away from it in case he missed something.

 _Yes! Yes! Hurry it up!_

Something was coming towards him, from the sky. And it was dark, flashing with twin lights, like a car's headlights. At first he reckoned it was just an ordinary plane. Had to be a plane. Humans were not that technologically advanced and they didn't have a varied range of machines, or any spaceships at all. Not conventional ones anyhow. But the shape drew closer, and louder. It tapered downwards, rear first, like it was preparing to land, flying low over the forest in the distance. Zim abruptly had the urge to run. He wasn't sure if he should trust this machine coming towards him at speed. The lights speared him in the eyes, and, likened to a rabbit paralyzed by sudden luminosity, he froze, undecided as to what he should do. While he was hankering on this, the vehicle slowed its descent, and angled away, heading for the road on Zim's left that was a stone's throw away. The vehicle landed heavily with a squeal of tires, and the Irken could hear a lot of metal jostling in its chassis. Then the vehicle turned back towards him, its wheels grinding steadily across frozen snow. Little wing struts that decorated its sides began to fold away, and suddenly the strange flying vehicle was an ordinary, if very stylish looking car.

The car pulled to a stop, its engine rumbling away, and the window rolled down. Zim just stood there, huddled into himself, shivering like crazy. Ice had gathered under his chin, under his antennae. It hurt each time he blinked. He looked into the darkness of the car's cabin; sure it was his doom in there, when Dib poked his head above the rolled down window.

Zim brightened with relief and crazy euphoria for but one heartbeat, before he got angry. "You took your time!" He said. But his teeth were chattering so hard, and his tongue was so lazy with cold that what he actually said was: "Yoth tok yar tim!"

Dib looked at him, and laughed.

"So, no wolves eat you then? Maybe they don't like the taste of lizard."

Zim was trembling so hard that he could not even spare a moment to insult the Dib. He was grateful of the human's super early arrival, but this was too hard to convey, so he didn't express any gratitude whatsoever. His pride was sore enough after what Gir had gone and done.

As of now, Zim was sitting in the front passenger seat of this supposed 'flying car.' He had a spare blanket tucked around his shoulders that Dib had thoughtfully brought along with him, but it had that old cigarette smell that he so very much hated. Dib also had the engine running, so that he could put the heating system up to max, but even so, Zim was sure he was dislocating his joints from all his mad shivering.

Dib rubbed his red nose, still not done with teasing his old nemesis. "Didn't know you'd freeze up like that. I thought you were so cold inside that the snow wouldn't affect you."

The old Elite miserably groaned, unable to articulate a reciprocating line of abuse. But then the bastard human sneezed at the wheel, and Zim whipped round at him, face grimacing, eyes cocked in disgust.

"Yeah, sorry Fudgekin. I got a real bad cold." Came his apology.

"You juth HATH to go an ge sick, din you?" Zim raged, which only made Dib laugh all the harder because he could not yet speak properly. "Thiss is juth perfec!"

Dib wiped a happy tear from the corner of his eye. "Well, you will call me in the middle of the night, lost in Montana. Next time, break down in Africa or something. I could do with the break from aliens."

"Hoowl you ge' here so fass?"

Dib patted the steering wheel, trying to keep the hilarity inside, "My dad's prototype car. He was a fan of the movie ' _Back to the Future'_ and wanted to make a flying car. He thought technology would naturally swing that way, but it never did. So he made one anyway. But it's expensive to run, and uses fuel that can't be replaced conventionally. I burrowed it from the garage in his lab."

"Yoth flu all th' way here?"

"All the way. But it's run out of fuel, pretty much." He paused, grabbed a tissue from the glove box, and blew into it. It was a very snotty sound, and Zim plastered himself against the far door, as if increasing the distance between them would spare him Dib's germs. His reaction made Dib giggle again, even as he was blowing his nose into the now-very-sodden tissue. After he was done, he slipped the dirty tissue into his pocket. Zim watched its passage with huge eyes. "I'm going to cart it back tomorrow using my breakdown service. In the meantime, I'm checking into a motel. You can come with, or sit in here all night and freeze." He looked down at Zim for a moment, and there was great knowing in his warm amber eyes behind those shiny glass lenses. Dib knew he was not going to get thanked. And a big part of him knew why Zim had ended up here. But he did not say anything. He just opened the car door, and stepped out into the chilly winds with nothing but a small backpack in one hand.

In that same instant, the heater died, as the engine grumbled into a quiet inertia.

As much as Zim wanted to be warm, he loathed the idea of 'being among humans.'

He watched Dib depart, and watched him getting further and further away from the car. Sprinkles of frosted snow glided into the way, sometimes obscuring the trench coat-clad human from view.

Shuddering, body aching in pain from the constant tremors, Zim saw how futile it was to sit in the 'flying' car all night. It would be another four or five hours until the sun rose. And Gir may have just flown all the way home.

Moaning like the oldie he was, Zim opened the car door with stiff claws and slipped down the seat and into the snow. He heaved the door shut and tried to hurry after his enemy in his braces. The blanket he used as a shawl, tugging it about his PAK with his claws, but it kept trying to take off, buffeted as it was by the screaming winds.

Dib stood there waiting, knowing that Zim would give up an inch of his pride just enough to follow. When the Irken was sheltered by his long legs, the human cupped his hands around his mouth and howled: making a terribly poor wolf impersonation.

Gullible old Zim shrieked as if he was under enemy fire, and ducked down between Dib's legs, whimpering. The blanket, no longer being pinned down by his claws, flew up into the winds like a kite, and was gone, carried off in the dark. Dib noticed this, and suddenly felt foolish for what he had just gone and done.

Sighing, he peeled off his trench coat and wrapped it around Zim. It covered all of him except his head.

"You landed in a little town called Hamilton in the Bitterroot Valley region. Because I do my research." He hadn't meant this last part to be insulting, but it was too late, he had said it. And Zim just snorted. "Do you have your... uh... disguise?"

"Noth!" Zim spluttered.

Dib used his hand to rub at his dribbling nose which again made Zim flinch in disgust. The human then lowered his backpack. "Get inside it." He said. "No one will see you. Then I'll check into a motel room and we can have hot chocolate or whatever."

Zim watched him unzip the bag. Dib took out a few things to make more room, and disturbingly enough, some of those things were used tissues.

"You're gonna have to remove those braces. They won't fit." He added.

"Stholdurs do no' go in bagsss!"

Dib wasn't in the mood for any of the Irken's self-absorbed military critiques. He was also aware that he could hardly understand him. The Irken's tongue was going more numb and stupid with cold.

"Too bad, Fudgekin." He loosened the knobs on the metal struts, easing the pressure that kept Zim inside them. Then, as if he was manhandling a plush toy, he wedged Zim into the backpack and zipped his exit almost to a close: leaving a breathing hole at one corner. Then, gathering the empty braces in his other hand, he slung the backpack against the back of his shoulder and walked down the snowy path towards Hamilton.

Dib stood at reception of Quality Inn, his nose as red as a fire engine. Every now and then they'd be a wriggling series of fidgets coming from his backpack, and a nonsensical word of insult.

"A room please, with two separate bedrooms." He said, depositing his credit card on the smooth but cold wood of the desk. "I uh, like to spread out." A shrewd little man who was running the graveyard shift was typing into his computer for any listed vacancies. He wore wire-framed glasses that looked like they were glued to his eyes, and it distorted his pupils, making them appear ten times bigger. He wore a wrinkly waistcoat and pants that couldn't get more creased if he tried.

The reception room itself was very quiet at the time of night. There was a dark sorrel leather sofa against the far wall by a plotted cactus plant, and a great big antique clock on the wall over the desk. But even in here, it was cold, and he could still hear the rampant winds thrashing away outside. The windows were all abysmally black, and the winds echoed, giving the reception room a hauntingly lonely appeal.

As he waited for the receptionist to give him keys to his room, he expected Zim to come tearing out of the backpack, giving them both away.

"We only have one room left." Said the shrewd little man with the vaguest look of apology. "With one bed."

Dib's eyes widened. It was so very hard to keep the dismay out of his voice. "Oh no, no! That's _got_ to be another room! I need two beds! I'm uh... meeting someone, for an appointment!"

"That's all we have, sir, I am sorry. Unless someone leaves right now, which I doubt, considering it's almost four in the morning, and the weather out there is frightfully dreadful."

Dib tried to think for a moment. His nose was running, and he was so tired from the long drive/flight here.

He could leave, and search for another motel, but, due to the snowstorm, he was pretty sure they'd be all booked out too, and Zim would only get colder and grumpier between trips.

"I'll... I'll take it." He said just when there was another angry shuffle in his backpack. Luckily the little man behind the desk was looking at the computer instead of Dib's moving backpack as he booked him into the system.

"Very good, sir. Would you like me to carry your bag up for you?"

"No, no it's all right, thanks!"

"You have room 12. It's the first one up the stairs on your immediate right." And he passed him his room keys.

Dib retrieved his credit card, took the keys and slipped them both in the back pocket of his pants before picking up the tiny leg braces. He meandered up the stairs, feeling a sneeze coming on. Zim's weight shifted a little in the bag at his shoulder but he still did not explode out of it. Dib only felt relief when he finally jangled the keys in the lock, opened the door and let himself in, closing the door behind him. A little too roughly, he dumped the heavy backpack on the ONLY bed available and went about turning on all the lights and shutting the room curtains. The braces he had left by the side of the bed.

Zim fetched a claw against the zipper, pulling it down so he could poke his head through the gap, coughing in severe disgust from its confines. Dib was assessing the room. It was quite roomy, for a place with only one bed. There was a small little partitioned bathroom with its functional basic shower, toilet and sink. They smelt of cleaning fluids, and the plastic black and white tiled flooring, as tiny as it was, just looked cheap and not very sanitary.

There was a big wide screen TV on a little desk in front of the one bed, and beside the TV was a mini fridge full of coke cans, tiny condimental snacks, beer cans, red bulls and tiny vodka bottles. On the other side on top of a cabinet was a kettle and a big selection of teas, coffees, and hot chocolates with small parcels of sugar, cream and milk and marshmallows.

Dib took off his boots, liking the spongy feeling of the carpet beneath his socked toes.

Zim glanced around, looking repulsed. Though the room looked perfectly all right to Dib, to the Irken, he saw things in a deeply critical light. The wallpaper sagged in places, especially in the corners of the walls, and there were old, feathery cobwebs hanging like dusty old hammocks from the yellowing ceiling. He sniffed several times, tiny nose ridges flaring as if he could smell something bad, but was unable to determine exactly what it was. He felt the sheets on the bed from under him, and pulled away, hissing like a skeksis from the movie ' _The Dark Crystal_.'

"It's just for tonight." Dib informed him, running the kettle under the tap and filling it almost to the brim. "Unless you wanna hang around in the snowstorm for a little longer." Kettle now full, he placed it back on its port, and switched the button for it to boil. When he cast a look over at Zim, he saw that the Irken was still rattling with terrible shakes. At least the ice had been knocked off his chin, and his antennae, but he was quite white in the face, and some of his skin along his neck and face had dissolved: peeling to raw patches from the constant snow fall. Snow obviously didn't hurt him as much as the rain did, but enough of it still caused mild to moderate skin irritation.

"There's only one bed." Dib continued, listening to the water in the kettle boil. He wanted to establish some ground rules first before Zim recovered enough to start hashing out orders. "And you don't need to sleep, do you? You can just sit and uh... doze on the sofa over there. And no funny stuff. Humans have got to sleep, and I'm tired, having travelled all this way just to stop you from freezing to death." When there was still no forthcoming retaliation, but expecting one at any moment, he added, "If you try anything on me, Zim, I'm throwing your braces out the window." Zim just sat there, clutching himself. His shakes were not easing. "Zim? Fudgekins?" He came over, expecting a trick. When he was close to him, he could see a scrim of ice on his PAK.

Timidly, Dib reached out with his hand and felt the Elite's left temple. It was like touching ice.

"Bugs don't do so well in the cold, do they? Whatever you are. Bug? Lizard?" He gave up on the teases. They weren't helping. "Take your boots and gloves off, Zim and I'll get you warmed up."

The Irken slowly tried to comply, and Dib intervened, snaking them off for him. He dumped the soft, glossy boots and floppy gloves down by the braces and coxed Zim under the bed sheets where he then proceeded to bundle him up in them. Satisfied, Dib drew away, turning the heating up in the room as far as it could go, and returned to the kettle that had come to a boil. He poured out a measure of boiling hot water into each of the two big motel mugs that had the words 'Quality Inn' in green on the front.

Zim was leaning against the pillows, covered in the bed blankets Dib had tucked around him, trying not to shiver, and shivering anyway. "I haeth Earth weather." He finally muffled between shakes.

"Well, you will end up in the worst of places." Dib poured in a parcel of hot chocolate into each mug, and stirred them with a spoon. Then he brought them over, and pushed a mug into Zim's stiff, clenching claws. "Drink it down as soon as it's cool enough. Hold it to your chest. That's it."

Zim just moaned angrily, at himself, and at Dib for being so close.

Dib sat down on the end of the bed, hearing the old springs creak, and gave the place another look over, holding his own hot mug of chocolate, and sipping it down tentatively. "So you crashed. Ran out of fuel? Or did you just accidently press the ship's self-destruct button?" He could imagine Zim being blind enough to do so.

"It's easy for you to moan about what you understand so little about! You could never grasp the perils of space ship travel." He snarled back, his tongue better able to vocalise his words.

"When you are convinced of your own unquestionable superiority, you don't need help from mere mortals like me, huh?" Dib answered quietly. "We all fuck up, Zim. It doesn't matter how superior you think you are."

"I don't think that I am. I KNOW that I am." He hissed. "You're just upset. You can't fly around in a ship like I can! Monkies aren't supposed to be flying around in ships anyways!"

"That's because you tore up its major turbines and engine auxiliaries!" Dib swung his head round to fetch him a heated glare. He knew he should be used to Zim's nasty debased remarks by now. They hurt him when he was a child, still sensitive to the world, and hadn't yet developed that vital case of armour around his heart. But even so, Zim was still able to punch through it now and then. "Aliens." He muttered under his breath,

There was uncomfortable silence between them, and Dib felt more and more wound up. Eventually he rose, put his half finished mug on the side table and went to fetch his bag. "What was I thinking? You don't need 'monkeys' to help you. God forbid. I'm out of here."

Zim straightened from the cushions, looking perpetually startled as if someone had just grabbed him from behind. "No, no Dib!"

"Yes, _Zim!_ You don't need me. And I don't need you. Why'd I even come for you? You're just bad. At everything. I have a life to live." He had his bag, grabbed some tissues, and clasped his hand on the doorknob leading to the outside motel corridor. The squeaky entreaty he got made him pause, and an unseen smile of relief tugged at the corners of his lips.

"You win! Okay! You win by... uh... five percent! You happy now, you dumb... dumb human?"

Dib gave a half turn.

Zim was helpless. In a human motel room, in an unknown land, with busted balance. He knew Dib had the upper hand.

And there were wolves out there.

Zim didn't know a whole lot about Earth still, and the wildlife native to any continent. He'd been here long enough by now to surely know all there was to know; having had time to build a mental encyclopaedia of the planet and its contents. But he hadn't.

Dib was used to the invader's incompetency by now. He had not seen it before as child. Then gradually he grew aware of it, until it was all he could see. But incompetency didn't make Zim any less dangerous.

Dib viewed the door for a second, pretending to hesitate. Zim watched apprehensively from the bed, his glassy, crimson eyes wide and staring. The investigator left the door and dumped his bag back by the bed. Zim noticeably relaxed.

"Guess I gotta stay the rest of the night." Dib remarked sourly. "But I'm sleeping in the bed. No way am I going to sleep on the floor, your highness."

Zim, having recovered a little from the cold, hopped out of bed with lissom grace, placed his mug on the nightstand, buckled himself into his braces with practised ease, and walked heavily across the spongy carpet towards him. A PAK leg unexpectedly tore out of its port hole as smoothly as a bullet. Dib hightailed it to the far wall, pinned by the sudden propulsion of fear. But all Zim did was stand on the carpet, and forcefully slash a line across the floor with his PAK leg. He was drawing a line down the centre of the room, and, because the bed happened to be in the way, Zim scrabbled up it, and continued cutting that line. His PAK drove a neat tear down the bed sheets. When he was all done, he rubbed his gloves together, and glowered at Dib from the bedpost, his eyes tipped up at him from out of carnal red slits. "This is MY side! You are not to cross it! I do not wish to suffer your inferior germs! Do I make myself clear?"

Dib looked down at the mess that had taken but a few seconds to appear. The carpet looked like he had been slashed with a laser, and the double bed was now wounded down the middle.

"Great." He helplessly groaned, seeing the dust from the bed and carpet haze into the air. "Now I'm going to have to pay for the damages, if the cops don't arrest me for it first." Then he sneezed.

Zim grabbed a pillow, and hid behind it as if it could shield him from all unwanted germs. "DisGUSTING! Stop spreading your germs!"

"I can't help it, Zim!" He said, wiping his wet nose with a tissue. "It's what happens when you are sick! Don't you ever get ill?"

"Of course not! Illnesses are for the weak and the inferior!" He said while still hiding behind his pillow, peeping over it when he was sure Dib was done blowing into a tissue.

"Oh yeah, sure, and I suppose that fever you had just a month ago was just a delusion we both had, right?"

"Oh well, if something ever, EVER implicates me for more than a moment, my PAK takes care of it. And if not, I just go to Karthia."

"Kartheia?"

"Karthia." Zim corrected him patiently. By now he had dropped the pillow down by his chest and was nervously probing it softness with his claws. "It's a planet not too far from here that sells all sorts of stuff. They have medicines for every inconvenient fever known to alien kind, remedies for all types of dirty, DIRTY illnesses, and that thing called disease. They'll even have a cure for what ails _you_."

"And what _might_ that be?" He challenged the little monster.

"Isn't it obvious? Your brain capacity. It's _so_ clearly below the norm."

"Hey! I'm not lacking in brain cells!"

Zim just shrugged as if he had made a valuable point in there somewhere. "I go there mainly for ship parts I can't recycle, or if the package I requested from the Empire just takes too long. And those dirty Karthians sell the best sweet water this side of the galaxy." He paused, wrote some alien jargon down on a slip of something from his PAK, and handed it out for Dib. Dib looked down at the piece of plastic, expecting a trick. With a deft step forwards, he snatched it from Zim's claws.

It was like a white stick left over from a lollipop. Scrawled on it was Zim's Irken handwriting.

"What's this now?" Dib asked.

"It's a code, you fool! Just pass it to the technician at the desk and he'll give you the new parts for your ship."

"And how am I supposed to get there?" He realized that Zim was saying 'thank you' in the only way he could, in the only way a soldier could. But to him the strange gift had no meaning.

"Surely you'll work that out by yourself. If you had the brain cells." Came his courteous remark. "I'M using your huuuman bathroom! Don't disturb me!"

"No falling in the toilet. I'm not pulling you out of there if you get stuck."

Zim swatted at the air, no doubt meaning it to be a rude gesture, and slid off the bed and continued to the bathroom where he slammed the door shut far harder than he needed to. Dib drank the rest of his hot chocolate, and slipped the worthless plastic stick into the back of his pant pocket. However, an hour soon passed, and Zim hadn't come back out. Dib needed to use the loo, and knocked on the door when he was pretty sure his bladder could get no bigger.

"Zim, what the hell are you doing in there?"

"I'm disinfecting the bathroom!"

"What? Seriously, Zim, open the door!"

The door opened, and Dib stepped inside. The bathroom, once a glum, dull place with some questionable stains on the bathroom tiles, toilet lid and shower curtains, was now all gleaming spotlessly. Zim was working away, spraying a corner of the floor tiles with a spray bottle; a cloth in the other hand.

"Zim... you!" Then the scene changed. Zim was sitting at the little table in the room, frowning over a hand of cards. It looked like he was in the middle of a game of Black Jack. This was where the game had started, years later they would still be playing it. But Dib blinked, confused. He himself was sitting opposite the Irken, shuffling he deck.

 _No, no this isn't how it went. This is different! Why am I remembering it... and seeing myself there?_

"Gir will be the death of me." Zim casually remarked, chin resting on his hand. He was looking at the other Dib. Then the Irken straightened the coaster in front of him until it was perfectly straight. The other Dib watched, amused.

He'll move it. No wait... I'll move it! Oh gods, why is this happening?

Sure enough, the other Dib reached over and pushed the drink coaster it so that was sideways.

"Why'd you do that for?"

"It's just a coaster Zim. Let things be crooked for once. Stop trying to control everything." Then the other Dib got out a sandwich from his pocket. "You hungry? Wanna share?"

"Your hands have touched it! You didn't even wash them when we get here pig filth!"

"Suit yourself."

The real Dib moved into the bathroom, seeing if there was an escape hatch from this reality that he so very suddenly felt trapped in. Before, it had not just felt like a dream, but a memory. Now it was a dream again.

In the bathroom, nearly everything was clean. Zim had made it so. He'd even pushed a little stool over to the sink so that he could clean the basin. But when he gave it a passing look, he saw green froth around the plug hole.

He dipped his finger in, and lifted it to his eyes so that he could see it better.

Alien blood.

He turned back round, and headed to the living room where his other self and Zim were still playing cards. But they were fading. The table was fading too, and everything had a translucent quality to it. Suddenly, he wanted to cling to these fading images, wanted to remain here, where life had not yet moved on, where things hadn't gone so far down the pot.

There were sounds and noises, but they were not a part of this reality. The motel room was fading to a distorted black.

Then a voice came, telling him to wake. It sounded like his father's voice from high up above.

Then Zim spoke. Out of nowhere.

"Dearest Dib human."

He jerked, as if he'd been stuck from behind with something sharp, and he spun round, expecting anything. Zim was standing in the void. But he was not in his invader uniform of stark crimson and black. Upon his form was a comely armoured attire of purple. His hands were clasped behind his back. And he looked healthy.

"How I hated you. For a long time, it was all I had, and all I wanted. Because you were free. And I was not."

"That's not true, Zim." He said. The rest of his world, tiny, or large, remained as black as the deepest reaches of the abyss. If this was a dream, then fuck it, he was going to go along with it. "Earth was your freedom! You didn't have to listen to your taller leaders! You didn't have to follow their mindless protocols!"

Zim just smiled, as if he knew much more than he. "You showed me strange things. Compassion. Kindness. If I were to accept your ways, it would mean denying my own."

Confusion dashed across his blend of emotions. "Zim, Zim? Why are you saying this? What has this got to do with anything?"

"You taught me that strength comes not from winning. That strength comes from overcoming hardships."

"Zim? What the fuck has gotten into you?"

He dropped down to his knees, and grabbed the Irken in an embrace. At first he justly believed that his arms would merely go through the soldier, as if either one or both of them were lucent, ethereal, and was filled with such paradise when he felt Zim's physical body press against his own. He didn't want to let go.

"Heh. Telepathy. It does still work." Zim mused in his ear, sounding very surprised with himself. "I hoped I would find you here. Always thought my telepathy would be too weak. Tak always moaned, saying my mental psyche would never amount to much."

"You're connecting, with my mind?"

Zim pushed back on him, and Dib reluctantly pulled away too. "This is for your own good, Dib."

"What is?"

The Irken's smile gradually thinned away, and he lifted up his claws and raked them across Dib's face. He went to raise his arm up to defend himself, and fell forwards, his whole body burning in unrecognisable pain. He hadn't realized he had clenched his eyes, and he opened them sporadically, seeing strange white walls and unfamiliar furnishings that were all chrome and metal with no warmth to them at all.

"My son! My SON!" Then he was caught up in the arms of his father. Dib blinked, feeling unscheduled tears rise to his eyes out of nowhere. "You're awake! Oh I knew you would! No one believed me! No one!"

"D-Dad?" He only got squeezed tighter. Now the tears reached the precipice, and were falling down his cheeks in silvery twin streaks. He could taste the plastic aroma of the mask on his face, and feel the invasive tug of the wires on his body. With one weak tug, he pulled away the oxygen mask. In his mind, he distraughtly searched for Zim's presence, any flicker of his telekinetic energies at all. When he could get no mental answer, he screamed the Irken's name, thinking, that maybe, just maybe, if he screamed hard: loud enough, he'd get an answer.

"It's just a bad dream son; it's just a bad, bad dream!" His father cooed, rocking him as if he was seven years old all over again.

Dib, suddenly feeling just like a boy, clung to his father's arms, and burst into tears.


	33. My Aftermath

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

* * *

 **A/N:**

*facepalm* I really, like, really apologize for the chapter length this time! It's gonna burn your eyes out! So uh, this should have you awesome readers sated for two weeks, right? You can read a section at a time, and in two weeks time I'll update. Deal? I wanted a delete a bunch of stuff in this, but didn't know how to. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I wasn't even gonna update today either but I found out a little something *cough* fanart *cough*. Also, this chapter is unedited, raw, I never got around to neatening up this much of this HUMONGOUS story, so sorry if there are mistakes and it isn't as polished. I like this chapter, and I LOVE the one after this. Just cause. XD

Anyway, here's to you, the fans, but this chapter in all its mad entirety is for *dramatic drumroll* _**Skeleion**_ from DA. Please DO check out her art! Her Invader Zim pictures are fantastic, and I love her style. It's funny because I've seen her art before, for awhile in fact, never knowing that she was reading this story over a hundred others! So urm, yes, nervousness has just increased by a 1000%! I have just discovered from dear **Frigid Dawn** that she has done AMAZING fanart from Saving Zim and I almost died happily when I saw it. I STILL haven't recovered from the fangirling. It's like sweet, sweet candy! So **Skeleion,** I hope the continuing chapters keep bombarding you with feels and stuff like your picture did for me!

P.S Don't you worry **BirdNerd03,** I haven't forgotten you! You'll get next update's dedication! ;3

Gods... I have such a massive audience... it's scary! Help me! XD

 **Edit:** I've neatened this chapter up a little and made slight corrections!

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 **CHAPTER 33 (39): My Aftermath**

"Dad... dad...!"

"Shhh now! I am here for you, son! I am here."

It was funny how such softly spoken words in the simplest form could make Dib feel so frail, so small, so much like a child again. He kept clinging to his father, head spinning in a slow, gravitational whirl. He smelled terrifying smells that did not tell him that he was home. No. It told a very different story of strange surroundings, scary unfamiliarity and alien ambience. He could hear the pulses of his own heartbeats on a nearby monitor, and the clink of wheels and trays as staff members went about their strange methodical ways beyond the closed doors of his ICU room. He tried to recollect where he was, _who_ he was, and was stifled by horror. His skin hurt. Things, pads, wires, all pulled at his skin in a conjoined effort to further frighten his wary, scattered mindscape. He felt like a confused animal, waking from its anaesthetic-hypnosis of sleep, only to get lost in this newfound reality. A reality he didn't find welcoming at all.

Through it all, Zim's gentle reproach stayed in his heart, and he knew something was terribly wrong. Was it a dream? Or had he sunken back into his past memories to be sent a message? Maybe Zim had interrupted his dream like an emergency news broadcaster interrupted a musical number? For what had happened in Montana _had_ happened, moronic aliens included. They had stayed in that motel room for one night where neither of them had got much sleep, even after playing Black Jack until four that morning.

"It's perfectly all right now, my boy. Perfectly all right. You have nothing to fear." The professor, still in his diaphanous white lab coat, was gently patting his back. His hair looked even whiter somehow in the sterility of the room. Dib poked his head over his father's embrace to try and see where he was. His vision was fuzzy and woolly without the aid of his glasses, but he saw enough to know that he was in a hospital.

"Zim?" He choked out. His throat was raw, as if he'd been drinking diesel all night, "Where is he? Is he here?" His words were weak, and raspy, like an old man was speaking in his place. Surely Zim had to be here too?

"He... was." The professor said to try and conciliate him. "I believe he went home. But do not worry about that right now! You need plenty of absolute rest!"

 _Zim was here, at the hospital?_ That wasn't like the Irken at all. Hospitals were filled with germs and people, his two most hated things.

"What... what happened?" He kept squinting without his glasses. His body hurt. It was like his skin was peeling back to reveal the inner rawness within. Each external touch made by his father whenever he patted or hugged him hurt. He raised one weak hand, and saw a big, fat ugly catheter wedged into the bony plateau of his wrist. His hand too was carpeted in heavy gauze, like the doctors were in the middle of mummifying him. His eyes trailed up the tube from the catheter, and saw it wind ever upwards to the tops of an IV stand. Now he began to picture why Zim had woke up like he had after the surgery, coming to the same awareness Dib had come to, but instead of drawling into languishing fear, Zim had reacted angrily, feeding that resplendent rage he had carried for an eternity.

"You... had an incident, my dear boy." The professor remarked softly, employing a gentle voice he reserved for whenever Dib had done something wrong, or when he had really hurt himself in his early boyhood years. "I received word from Clara that you and Zim were playing with explosions. Fireworks, presumably?"

"No... no!"

Was that how it went?

Dib tried to think back. It was so hard. He felt woozy, and his head felt like it had a chunk missing from it. What did he even look like? If he were to look into a mirror right now, would he be all there? Would he look almost like his old self? Or would he be looking into the dark, pain soaked eyes of a wrapped up ghoul?

Each swallow was a hard assault on his throat.

He and Zim had been walking across Maple Park. They had almost secured Gir. Then the robot, in a fit of sudden activation, had turned against his former master, and all Dib remembered was the way his feet moved, the way he spread his arms wide to catch the falling star of plasma, and the way Zim had horrendously screamed. Then there had only been fetid dreams, as real as reality, cantering and slipping and whirling around him as he stumbled deeper and deeper into the lost realms of his unconsciousness. Zim had pulled him out of it. He was _sure_ of that. They had connected, must have connected. He had felt Zim's fading strength, his alien reach. And his lasting imprint of warm pride from the simple fact he had succeeded in waking his friend and brother in arms from the depths of a coma.

But there had been a lasting, profound emotion far deeper and far more distinct than anything else he had felt from Zim's contact.

It was black and all-consuming depression that had filled the Irken's epitome. And even the surety of their connection had not shaken it.

Though this event had happened mere moments ago, Dib felt time slipping: hurrying away from him.

He made to rise, and tug against the wires, feeling like a caged beast entangled by restraints. But his father gently, paternally, pushed him back. "No, son. Rest. You have the most terrible burns and a nasty fever to boot. I should go and get Dr. Mills. He'll know what to do! I must also inform Clara. She will be thrilled that you are awake! And I will see to it that those burns are continually treated!"

As much as Dib wanted to obey his father, he could not. "Dad! Bring me the phone! I have to make a call!"

"Son..." He began warningly.

"Now, dad! Please!"

His father contemplated him for a long eternal moment as if considering if he should give in to his son's petulant request, or to just ignore it, sweep it under the rug and make sure his son got immediate medical attention. He wanted none of his son's usual fussing. But he must have seen the deep, dark web of pain in his son's eyes.

"Just one call. Then your treatment."

"Thank you, thank you!" He muttered.

His father passed the black cordless phone to a bandaged hand, and Dib found that he could barely grip it. He slowly, too slowly, pushed in the respective numbers, each one getting him closer to making the call. He shivered, feeling the heat of his fever lash across his forehead like fire. He made a mistake, hitting the numbers 1 instead of 7, loudly cursed, and started all over again. When the series of numbers was finally inputted, he pressed the phone to his red, blistered ear and listened to the dial tones. His father waited by the bed, arms folded in front of his chest. He always looked so stern.

"Come on, Zim. No messing around. Pick up, pick up! Please pick up!" The dial tones continued, and each one struck home a foreboding sense of cavernous loss into his heart as painfully as hammer-driven nails. The dial tones ended, and Zim's answering machine kicked in:

" _Don't leave messages! I don't want messages! I will destroy you!"_

Then there was a bleep.

"Zim!" He spoke into the recorder, "I'm in the hospital! Where are you? Pick up! Pick up right now! I'm alive! And I'm okay! But I gotta know if you're there! Zim?"

His father gently took the phone away from him, and placed it on its receiver. "I have tried myself. He is not answering."

"But he's really sick, dad!"

"I'm sure he can wait just a few days. First we've got to get you all patched up."

"But... but he contacted me in my mind! Something's wrong! He..."

"Yes, yes I am sure." His father patted him almost condescendingly on his shoulder – a shoulder that was also wrapped in bandages like he'd been in a car crash, _and_ a fire. Was this all plasma damage? Had it spread upwards, encasing his flesh into a hellish ruin? Would it all heal eventually? Or had saving Zim scarred him for the rest of his days?

"I am going to retrieve that negative no-good doctor." The professor said. "Don't you leave that bed for one moment, son of mine, or there will be many consequences!" And he unlocked the ICU door and was gone, trudging down the cold, white washed walls in a solid march.

Dib reached for his glasses, slipped them over his sore, red nose, and at once the room brightened into crystal focus. There was an overhead slit of a window, the phone on the cabinet beneath it, and bulky, old hospital units he did not like the look of. His bed had a metal chrome frame, and adjacent on each side were machines monitoring his vitals. It looked like his incident with the plasma had been very costly. He might have been close to dying. And he had acknowledged that penalty, and stepped to meet Gir's charge anyway.

All because he didn't want to see his oldest friend and rival die without first sampling what life was really all about. No more missions, no more invading meant that Zim could finally start to live in an ordinary world without the enduring the graphic expectations and hardships of his people. And Zim was dying before he'd ever have a chance at life. If, of course, Irkens _could_ willingly let go of their indoctrinated precedents, and abandon their programming once and for all. Zim had come so close to it. But his external PAK was snatching it all away, chunk by huge chunk, leaving him to contemplate nothing else but the finality of death. With Gir helping him along for the ride.

He wanted to hitch straight out of bed, and pull off all the wires and gismos and slam those ICU doors open and defiantly make his way out of here. But exhaustion stole over him, as leaden and as heavy as a blanket, and he dozed in and out of sleep. His nightmares were persistent; whole stretched-out scenarios lasting but a minute in his mind. There seemed to be no reprieve for him, sleeping or awake as nightmares garnered in every available corner. When he did next wake, bolting off his pillow, bandaged skin flush with sweat, his heart thundering in his chest as he sipped in short, shallow breaths, a low light was turned on, and what he thought was his bedroom became an alien atmosphere of sterile surfaces, metal table tops and strange, medicinal machines once more. Clara had turned on a lamp by the hospital bed and she was looking down at him with troubled concern. Before she even said anything, she was helping him lie back down. Dib resisted her.

"Wh-Where am I? I have gotta get out of here... g-gotta go..." His words were mostly incoherent as he babbled them in steep befuddlement, but Clara just shook her head at him as she tucked him back in.

"Please relax! You're at Lincoln Hospital, remember? Everything's going to be okay."

' _There are no monsters.'_ His father used to say, when he tucked him into bed one night when he heard his little son crying. _'There's nothing to be afraid of. No monsters are coming, and there are no aliens. What you saw was just a movie, and movies are not real, my son! Now go back to sleep! I have work to do!'_

And he felt just like that little boy again. He had been reduced to feeling like he was five years old.

Quickly he shot glances around the I.C.U room, convinced he'd see the monsters, or the scattered, gory remains of his nightmares. He saw nothing of out of the ordinary, just a boring, standard hospital room that offered no such malice.

The bed sheets smelt clean at least, and he wriggled his toes and fingers, hoping everything was still attached. He was over the moon when he felt all his appendages respond to him accordingly, even though the actions brought forth a soft, burning pain. He dreaded to see what he looked like, beneath the cotton sheets.

Clara looked the same, he was pleased to see. She looked spooked and tired, as if she hadn't had a proper sleep in a few days, and her hair was greasy, but otherwise she was fine. The nightmares, though it still chilled him, lost its meaningful hold on him as reality swept him into its folds.

"The ambulance picked you up at Maple Park." His fiancée continued. "You're suffering severe burns and lacerations, Dib. Don't you remember?"

"A... a little."

Dib tried to relax against his pillow, but his mind was racing. Terrible weakness stole through him, and with it, bone-deep fatigue. He could hear machines beeping, and the occasional spurt of activity from beyond the doors when people walked by, that, and the occasional squeaking of wheelchairs or bed rollers.

Clara was still giving him that I'm-Taking-No-Prisoners-Look. "You were playing with fireworks apparently." She straightened. "Maybe I should go and get the doctor. You're really pale. Are you in any pain?"

Truthfully he felt really numb, and gathered that it was from all the morphine they'd very likely have given him. "How long was I out for?"

"A day, at most. Maybe fourteen hours? The ambulance brought you in around midday, and now it's gone three in the morning. I was so worried! I didn't know what to do but sit here, and pray!"

Dib tried to digest it all, feeling out of whack as if he had moved forwards in time, blacking out in the process, because he remembered just a swab of scenes and emotions.

Clara sat him up a little bit and offered him a cool glass of water. He was very thirsty; he realised, and he felt the water soak his dry, cracked lips that were blistered in burns. The water was a salve to his throat, and he realized how very dry he felt inside.

When he was half done with the water, she suddenly took it away. "You can have some more in a bit, Dib, just not yet. Drink it too fast and it'll make you throw up."

He licked his blistered lips, wanting more.

"The doctor put you on antibiotics immediately. Apparently people with bad burns develop infections really easily."

"ZIM!" He snapped fully alert again, almost pushing himself back into an awkward sitting position. Clara almost seemed to have suspected he'd react as such as memory tumbled into the gaps in his brain, and she pushed him gently back down.

"I had to get him to leave. He got you into this situation."

"No, no you don't understand! It isn't his fault! It was my decision! My responsibility!"

The memories were still frayed at the edges as if they had got burnt too, but he remembered. Gir had aimed for Zim, and without thinking about it, knowing that Zim could not take another hit; Dib had taken it upon himself to be the victim. He had done it selflessly.

He could have died, he knew. But he had acted anyway, thinking that Zim's death would be far more painful to live with, than facing his own demise.

And Zim visiting him in hospital meant that he had survived. They had both survived.

He remembered nothing else, and began to wonder who had called the ambulance after Gir's attack.

Was it Zim? Or was it some passerby?

"You should just rest." Clara gave him the rest of his water, which he drank down gladly. "Your body is badly injured. I thought I was going to lose you, you know." She put down the empty glass on the table stand next to the bed. "Your dad left only an hour ago to get some sleep."

He felt a little disparaged. Everyone probably believed he'd had a brush with a 'firework' and honestly, he had to go with the lie, or else get Gir involved, which would then get Zim involved which would then get the police involved and that would all invariably bring about investigations, the FBI. And the last thing he wanted to do was incarcerate an old alien after years of strained friendship.

It made Dib look stupid. Here he was, a thirty three year old man, in hospital because he was playing with 'fireworks.' God knows what his dad was already thinking of him. But it was a small price to pay: one dent to his image and pride to save an alien.

Even though he almost died doing it.

Regardless he did not wish to stay here. He did not want to have to put up with strangers coming into his room to rearrange the machines, inject morphine and antibiotics into him, change the I.V drip, fluff up his pillows and give him his meals. There was even a wheelchair posted by his bed. It seemed to be grinning at him.

"When you feel like getting up, I suggest you use this first." She said, gesturing at the wheelchair he suddenly found himself staring at. "Your legs aren't ready to take your weight."

There was a knock on the door. Dib stiffened against the pillow, helplessly calling his friend's name in the dire hope that he had come after all. But bitter disappointment knocked him down anew when he saw that it was only the doctor. He came in, giving Dib a warm, soft smile that almost seemed to be genuine. "Ah awake again I see! Very good! And how are you feeling today, Mr. Membrane?" Dr. Mills always wore the same stock-white doctor's coat with a heavy old stethoscope slung over his shoulders. He exuded pleasant benevolence that helped peg down Dib's fear by several notches.

"Stiff, I guess." Truthfully, he didn't feel nearly as bad as he did when he first woke up.

"You have some deep burns, Mr. Membrane," he had said to him, "When the uh... firework went off, you got the worst damage towards your legs and pelvis. Then the damage seemed to have spread outwards, coating your arms and chest in fire. Though I can see you are making a good recovery, you will be scarred for life, and your skin will take a long time to heal."

"So uh... when can I leave?" Dib put in, smiling weakly.

"Leave?" Dr. Mills lost his easy smile. "Mr. Membrane, you are to be bedbound for two weeks! After which you will be under investigation for carrying drugs."

"Drugs? Oh, those weren't mine." Dib said. "Those 'drugs' belong to Zim. He's sick. I need them back!"

"I'm afraid the police have them. Regardless, your father has eliminated your criminal charges, as there is not enough evidence to pin the drugs on you, and your concern right now is your health. However, this 'Zim' of yours needs investigating further. He is your foster child, is he not?"

Wisely, Clara did not speak a word. She looked up, intrigued, but did no more than that.

Dib frowned. "Foster child?" Then his brain began to work. If Zim had arrived in the hospital with him (unlikely but not impossible), Zim would have to come up with some kind of believable excuse for his relation with Dib. And he might have used this 'I'm his kid' excuse to try and dodge their questioning. "Yes, yes that's right." He suddenly blurted.

"He ran from the hospital. He appeared to be severely distressed. We tried to bring him back, but after he left hospital grounds, the police lost track of him."

"He's uh... fine I'm sure! I just need to leave so I can..."

"No, you must recover first, Mr. Membrane. I'm sure the police will find him."

When the doctor had left, Dib tried calling Zim again. There was no answer. So he rang again three minutes later.

And again he got no answer.

"Don't worry! He's probably just feeling guilty, and that's why he's not answering." Clara reasoned.

"Have... have you told them?" Dib asked her frantically.

"Told who?"

"The authorities! Have you told them Zim's an alien?"

"No, no." She stroked his bandage-lined forehead. "He's your friend. Sure, he got you into this, but I didn't say anything. And I have to say, he's doing quite well, walking around after the surgery. Now get some rest."

The day went by slowly and he tried getting around in the wheelchair. His bandages were changed routinely, and his open wounds hurt as if he had been freshly burned all over again. All his perforated skin did was weep and weep, and the nurse applied cream and salve to try and keep the wounds from drying out. And then there was the itching, the terrible, _terrible_ itching. It felt like he had red fire ants crawling up his skin, and he could imagine them biting into the pink of his flesh until he was quite sure he'd go mad. If this was plasma scoring, he never wanted to be hit by it again. Even his bones had been burned as if the plasma ignored flesh, and went straight through the body like gamma rays. It hurt to walk, but he forced himself to stand for brief intervals until he was forced to sit back down on the bed.

On that second day at the hospital as the sky began to grow dark earlier than expected, he tried calling Zim again, fearing the inevitable.

He had no idea if Gir was still on the loose and freely roaming the city. So far there was no news concerning a menacing robot, and nothing about aliens either. It was possible that Zim had managed to contain Gir once again, but Dib wasn't so sure.

"Clara, could you do me a BIG favour and swing by Zim's house? And ring his doorbell? I gotta know if he's okay."

Due to his uprising anxiety, he had barely eaten what the doctor had advised him to eat. He had barely done anything else in fact, other than preside over the phone and count down the hours. He kept thinking, imagining even, that Zim had had a heart attack from all the stress. It was not a good image. But it was all he could visualise.

"Don't forget to knock extra loud. He's so deaf he might not hear the doorbell."

To suit his growing fears, Clara nodded. "Okay. I'll go over there. Because I love you." And she left, grabbing her handbag and blowing him a kiss.

At five minutes past five that afternoon, he got a visitor. Gaz.

He welcomed her in, astonished as always to see that she was walking around with that game device still in her hands. It was almost as if it was glued there.

"Anything I can help with? Washing you, feeding you, that sort of shit?" She asked.

Dib was inundated from her lack of concern. But maybe it was just her way of dealing with things.

"No, actually." He said, "Clara made sure I was comfortable before she left. She's gone to see Zim, and if he'll..."

"You're not to see him." She spoke sullenly. "He's done enough, don't you think? Besides, aren't you still fighting him?"

"No, Gaz. We've both grown up a little. Besides, we were in the middle of something before I got... burned by fireworks. And his health hasn't been too good lately. He hasn't done anything wrong. The reason I got sent to the hospital was because of something _I_ did, not him."

"What _about_ his health?"

"It's... a long story."

That seemed to be enough to put her off. All she said was, "You can't trust Irkens, Dib. You know that. He isn't a person, and he isn't human. You should concentrate on your own life. You have Clara to think about, so don't go and screw it up because of some stupid alien!"

Her argument made perfect sense. And really there was no debate. Zim was an alien with different intentions, different ideals. Trusting him was all very well and good, like trusting an unplugged chainsaw. But once it was turned on, you got a very different animal indeed.

When Gaz left, Dib was all alone.

He fell asleep. And had more bad dreams.

 **xxx**

He dreamed that he was back in Zim's base. Back in the shifting firelights of his alien technology. All the doors retracted on silent hinges, disappearing down slots in the wall. Warm air escaped out in a waft, carrying with it the scents of blood

Then Dib woke up; woke up with stark realization that it had all been a dream. Every damn irrefutable bit of it.

He shored himself up on his elbows in the near-darkness of his beeping ICU room, feeling the rush of cool air steal into his lungs as he took deep, calming breaths.

Dib felt bright panic then and there, and it eclipsed his thoughts - his feelings into a big mess of scattered hopes and fears. Every time he thought of Zim, the panic brightened again like revamped electricity. And he was the circuit.

He _had_ to get out of here.

And this disquiet idea brought with it a calming euphoria. Yes, he was getting out of here, and no one would stop him.

Earlier, before his infrequent dozing and list of nightmares that he seemed to be working his way down, Clara had returned a little past six o'clock to tell him that Zim had not answered the door. She had patiently explained that she'd rung that bell and knocked on that door for almost fifteen long minutes. She'd even opened his letterbox and yelled his name a couple of times. But of him there was no sign.

"The house just looks empty. There were no lights on. As if he simply wasn't there." Was her conclusion.

Now it was almost ten o'clock at night. The sky outside his window was as black as ebony marble with not a trace of snow twirling past. The usual hospital staff traffic beyond his closed doors had gone eerily quiet. He could not hear the usual frequent passing of shoes click-clacking down the corridor, or the squeak of hospital trolley wheels or the sounds of patients moaning as they were swapped between wards or operation rooms. He could only hear the languid, poisonous symphony of his own machines.

Then out of nowhere, his mind spoke to him in the close confines of his anxieties: _some lousy human I turned out to be. Couldn't withstand some plasma. Didn't see it in time. I should have done more. Should have noticed Zim's symptoms weeks earlier. Should have shot Gir with the Absolute. I had the gun! I had the perfect moment! And I did absolutely nothing. I left Zim with the aftermath. Intentionally, sure. But I still left him all alone._

Dib sat up, feeling his tender skin pulling against the gauze. Felt how tight and itchy and sore it still was.

He saw the wheelchair crouching there like some kind of malevolent chrome being, sitting in the shadows of the room like a gloating spectator: waiting for him to plant his hands on its steel hand bars and waiting for him sit gladly down on its plastic seat. He refused it on a personal level, casting it with heavy eyes of defiance akin to the spite Zim used to parade in his past glory days.

His weak hand clutched at the unusual necklace resting upon his collarbone. It did not escape him, during his long, preliminary dozes that most of the glowing liquid inside it had mysteriously gone. Just vanished. As if, during the short scuffle with Gir, some of the pink magical-looking liquid had leaked out.

He felt like he was missing so much. His memory could not fathom the pieces between here and then. His father had told him it was all okay, to just take it easy, and that he was probably mildly concussed.

The bottom part of the vial glowed still, revealing a few sly droplets inside.

 _If I want to do this, I gotta go all the way._

He looked to the wires stringing his body to the bed. It was easy to view oneself as a prisoner, and again it made him think of Zim, and how very afraid this mild restriction must have made him feel, polluting an already paranoid mind when he awoke in his resting chamber after life-saving surgery.

Dib grabbed four of these invasively thin, translucent wires from his chest, and pulled. He felt the suckers peel off his skin, beneath the bandages. The ECG machine began to emit an alarm when his heartbeat suddenly disappeared. He leaned over, grabbed the lampshade by the bed, and threw it at the machine. It landed on a platform of buttons and an assortment of other gizmos, and the ECG machine let out an unhealthy groan before shutting up.

"Score one for Dib." He murmured without feeling the victory.

He tackled his catheter, again visualizing Zim going through the same panic-inducing process. It was only now, being in a similar situation, that Dib fully understood what Zim felt, and what he must have gone through with such an unbalanced mind. No wonder he had reached for the Absolute, _and_ he had been suffering a heart condition, drug intoxication and the corruption of his PAK on top of everything else. He must have felt like absolute shit.

"If Zim can do it, so can I." Dib muttered to himself, his fingers perched around the plastic tubing of the catheter. He would bleed. Good god he would bleed. Either that, or trail the great long metal rod and drip bag with him like some crazy loon.

He reckoned that Zim had ripped it out of him like he was ripping off a band aid.

Do it quick. Don't even think about it.

Zim was so darn, ludicrously brave.

As Dib had got older, he found himself being _less_ brave. How did that work?

His fingers clenched on the tubing, and he didn't just pull like he was trying to loosen an old nail from a wooden board, he yanked it out. And yes, blood did spray. It didn't hurt right away, so bright was the blood and the shocking aftermath of it, and Dib rummaged in the nightstand drawer for a roll of gauze the nurses kept in there. He wrapped a whole roll of it multiple times around his hand, securing that nasty image of blood spouting away in there.

The very bloody catheter lay on the bed sheets, trailing its IV line.

He had evicted himself from his own ball and chain. Now he was free to leave.

Clutching his newly bandaged hand to his chest, Dib swung his legs over the bedside and estimated the height he would have to contend with if he wanted to descend to the floor. It wasn't so bad. It was only two feet down.

"I'm coming Zim, you big dummy." He whispered, even though he had no idea how he would fulfil such a pledge. But the words felt solid in his head, and felt more substantial than he currently felt in his body. The ICU room made him feel ghostly and transparent, as if the very room was sucking him away piece by piece without him noticing. He wanted to go outside, and feel what was real, and breathe in the dark, grimy streets of home. He wanted to see car headlights barrelling down lonely roads. He wanted to see the stars peeling through heavy cloud cover. He wanted to touch the wind, and the rain, and the snow and feel the pinch of cold. Because these sensations, humble and ordinary though they were, experienced over a million times in his life, told him he was alive. Told him what was real. And told him what to expect. And there was normality and safety in that.

He would not get any of that, staying here, breathing in the old scent of blood and the sickness of others, and of himself.

Dib stared at the floor, and at his socked feet dangling from it. He could do this. He could slip off this bed, no problem _. Just take a breath. I've got no Irken to push me forwards this time. So I gotta do it for the both of us._

He shimmied his rear forwards along the bed sheets and mattress, and felt the bottoms of his thighs grease with pain. No doubt he looked like a red lobster beneath the plaster of gauze. One day soon he'd find out what he looked like beneath, when he dared remove the bandages for himself. And he wanted Zim to be there with him when he took that plunge.

Gently he left the grand support of the bed, and felt the weight of his body pool onto his legs. But his legs held, and there was no pain beneath the soles of his feet. The burns obviously had not reached that far down. But when he walked, he was careful his thighs did not touch – or brush together even for a second. His skin felt like the crispy skin of a freshly cooked chicken, liable to come peeling off should he rub against it too hard in any particular way. He was sure his mind was just surmising the worst and that actually his flesh might not be that badly burned, but it hurt like hell. Skin was a very personal and sensitive thing. If it was healthy, you took little to no notice of it, but the moment it had a splinter, was rubbed raw, or was scalded, it hurt. And a disease just to the skin alone could quickly make anyone feel unclean.

He grabbed his clothing in an armful. His father had come back with many of his familiar belongings earlier that morning after he'd come out of his coma. He had motherly folded them up neatly on a chair by the wheelchair, hoping that if his son saw familiar things, he'd recover all the faster. Dib stuck his feet into his boots that were still sticky with mud from Maple Park, and slipped his glasses back onto his red nose. Then he threw off his hospital gown almost in revulsion and tenderly slipped on a fresh blue shirt, mindful of his bandaged abdomen, arms and shoulders.

Man, he really was covered in gauze.

Gir had proved to be far deadlier than he had predicted.

One shot had brought him down instantly.

Could you really expect no less from a militaristic robot? Made to protect their Irken masters in their espionages and war? Gir had been built foundation-wise like any other S.I.R unit, even if his behaviour drives were inferior, compared to Tak's robot for instance.

Now that he was out of bed, and hobbling a little from the pain in his pelvis, Dib could reach the phone. He snatched it up, and pounded in the number. It only dialled out thrice before it was answered.

"H-Hello?" Came that tentative voice.

"Clara. It's me. I don't care what you're gonna say. I have _got_ to do this. And you are not stopping me."

"Dib? What's going on? What do you mean?"

"Get in the car now. Pick me up at the hospital and take me over to Zim's house."

"Dib! You're not thinking straight! You haven't been discharged! Your burns!"

"Clara. Do this for me. You gotta do this for me." He clenched his hand around the phone's heavy duty plastic. Fire raced across his eyes, as black as coal. He swallowed convulsively. Then he slammed the phone down on its receiver, grabbed his trench coat and threw it over his shoulders like a cape. Face burning from emotion, and not just from his burns, he grabbed his bag down by the wheelchair and pushed the ICU doors open with his shoulder. He staggered, flared up in pain, and skidded down to his knees on the hard linoleum floor. He tried to stifle in the gasp, but it tore out of his throat before he could jam down on it. However, some inborn resilience burst through from the roots of his determination and he staggered back to his feet, swaying once. Then he stomped down the corridor. The bandaged hand that was not holding his bag was shaking so badly that he would have been unable to hold a cigarette.

He strutted as quickly as his abused body could manage, walking down a ghostly-lit empty hospital corridor that was still filled with evil smells and evil sounds. There would be a disembodied moan howling down one hallway, and a squeak of a trolley wheel. Then silence.

If hospitals were not graveyards, they were close to it.

He squeezed his bag handle tighter, and approached the reception desk. There was a tired old woman at the desk, reading some glossy Girl Funhouse magazine. She looked up at him as he moved towards her, but his eyes weren't set on her. They were set on the double doors ahead. The doors that would permit him to freedom, fresh air, the noise of traffic and the scent of winter cold. That was freedom. Not the stuffy confines of death that swaddled him in here so completely.

"Sir?" Questioned the receptionist hesitantly, "Sir, what are you doing?"

She may not recognize him as an in-patient, as so many must rush in and out of here on a daily basis, but the burns on his face, and the carpets of bandages on his temples, hands and neck must have been a good indicator of his position here at the hospital. But he made no eye contact. He kept marching forwards like a lion set on a destination. And even as she stood up from her chair behind her desk, dropping the Girl Funhouse magazine, he did not stop. He flicked his hand up, straightening his elbow, pointing it outwards, and slammed his heel into the glass frame of the door. They opened, and Dib glided through them, feeling a little bit like a super hero.

His reward was the crisp, cleanish air of a busy Lincoln city. The sound of the distant traffic was a boon to his ears, mind and soul. All the sickly smells and stuffiness he had endured began to leave his system and his mind as fresh, brittle snow landed on his hair, shoulders and nose in soft strands. Curling fog was exhaled out of his mouth in smoky tendrils.

Ah it felt so good to be alive! To breathe in all that was real!

"Sir!" The old woman had burst out of the doors behind him. "I do not believe you have been discharged! Get back inside, where it's warm!"

He saw only concern in her eyes and face. Feeling like a whimsical old fool whose brain might have been frazzled in the plasma as well as his fried skin, he lifted his free hand up in a meek little wave. Then Clara's car splashed through the snow of the sidewalk and beeped at him. Dib approached the passenger side door, opened it and ducked inside, planting his bag between his boots.

"Floor it." He said, and slammed the car door after him. Clara stared into his rapturous eyes, not sure what she was seeing, or what to believe, other than that her fiancé had gone mad. He himself felt quite calm. He was finally doing what felt right. Sitting in that hospital bed felt a lot like something akin to limbo. And waiting for Zim's call. A call that would never come.

He had thought he had died. Thought he'd hurtled towards his own end. And he very nearly had. Now, as he looked back at recent events, he viewed them with a kind of academic surprise. He supposed he was still in some mild degree of shock, having not yet caught up with everything.

"Clara." He said when she had not put the car in gear. The old woman was pounding across the hospital porch entrance, towards the car. "We've got to go."

"Dib! What aren't you telling me? Why are you doing this?"

"Just drive! I'll explain on the way, Clara! Please!" He slammed his hand down on the door-lock, and when the woman went to open it, she merely tugged at the handle. Dib drew his hand away. That small action so thoughtlessly made to lock the door had hurt. Blood welled up in the palm of his hand behind the white crepe of bandage.

Finally understanding his desperation perhaps, or finally seeing the dark despair in his eyes, she hit the gas and the car flew forwards. The woman dropped to the sidewalk with a cry of surprise.

They pulled onto the road at speed, and cut around the traffic. Despite the speed, Dib could feel that rising pressure building within him. Even if he was strapped to a rocket, he still would not have thought he was going fast enough.

"Dib. What is this all about?" She sounded hysterical. Close to tears.

He was stubborn, he realized. Stubborn enough to repel the help of the hospital and battle through his injuries to get to this moment. It was also the same stubbornness that had got him hit by plasma, when he had placed himself between Zim and Gir like a fool. But the act, no matter how insane, made him smile ever so slightly. He never thought he had had it in him to be so utterly, mindbogglingly selfless. In his apocalyptic rushing, he had not given the scenario too much thought. Now he wondered if he was as truly mad as his father thought him to be.

"We weren't playing with explosives, Clara. I've told you that Zim has a little robot named Gir. Loneliness drove him to treat Gir as a child. But, lately, that same robot started going wrong. He started to become dangerous."

He quickly told her of how he and Zim had tried to bring Gir back to the Irken's base in the narrow hope they could secure him, and fix him.

"Gir attacked Zim. I couldn't stand by and let it happen. So I took the hit for him."

Clara swerved dangerously on the road, nearly hitting an oncoming truck. When she retook control of the car, she took in a convulsive gasp and said, "I hit him."

"What?"

"I slapped Zim! I thought he'd almost got you killed! He didn't tell me the truth! It hurt me so terribly to do that to him! Now I feel awful!"

"Don't beat yourself up over it. He's more used to disappointment than you know."

This is not seem to reassure her much.

Dib studied the traffic lights as they went past them, and saw the solitary flecks of snow through the glares of red and oftentimes green lights. The houses on this side of Lexicon Street all looked about to capsize. They were old, always had been old, even when he was a boy. He and Zim used to walk down this street after SKOOL, arguing and flat out hating. They hadn't been down this street since.

He wondered if Irkens could suffer nostalgia. He wondered if they could regret, like a human being, cursed with simple but very real emotions that liked to escalate obscenely at times.

He was pretty sure Zim was a victim to nostalgia as the next person. Why else did he keep coming to the Treaty every Monday and Friday night? Why else had he suffered his human company? And traded Christmas gifts for a joke? And why did they know each other's phone numbers off by heart?

Lately, Zim had been more human than at any other time in his life. He had quietly stepped away from his mission, pretending he was still planning the plan. Pretending he was still top elite. When really, he knew he was dying. And had slowly, softly, began to creep into isolation that every dying animal does when they can sense death approaching.

If there was anything left to save, Dib made a quiet vow to himself that he would step in. That he wouldn't allow Zim to shadow himself in isolation any longer. It was time to show that alien all there was in an ordinary world. In an ordinary life without the hardships of expectations, military BS and imperialistic debasement.

" _What if we seal it with a deal? If I help you with Gir, then I want you to promise that you'll come see my dad for repairs."_

The words came from far, far back in Dib's mind, from his own library of memories. Zim had sat at his computer console, shivering in repressed rage at his own sickness. He had not raised his claws to shake on the deal, as if he believed he would not live long enough to see it through.

The wind was picking up, shaking the dead tree limbs along the tree as they entered Maple Street as snow blasted across the horizon in random, giddy spurts. He hadn't seen this much snow since when he was a kid. It had snowed blankets during December. He remembered with shy humour of Zim throwing hot buckets of water from his front door to get rid of the snow, only to have the hot water later freeze and turn to black ice over the course of the following night. It had been so slippery that Zim had been unable to go more than one foot from his welcome mat to so much as retrieve his newspaper that had been crucified on a gnome head.

"How did... this... Gir... turn bad?" Clara asked.

"My dad fabricated this EMP malfunction as he tried to produce cleaner energy. It swept across the whole city like an invisible fire to all things electric. Ever since then, Gir has never been the same."

He was glad he wasn't driving. The medication that he was on prohibited him from driving, and he tended to nap a lot. He guessed that drugs fuddled with his brain. But hey, at least it curbed the pain.

The drive took five more minutes and Clara parked on the curb as Zim had no driveway.

As she had foretold, the house was dark. This was worrying. That house always presented some eerie glow, like it was a living entity, and that its very walls glowed with alien life in strange, unfavourable pulses. Now the house stood almost in a crooked, broken way, its lambent walls an abstemious, deathly dead green as if someone had removed the plug that powered it. Its windows too, usually bright from harboured life and activity within, was a solid black as if all life had been sucked from it.

Dib opened the car door in the chilly winds and stared up at a dark house that once stood so proudly, so austerely, mirroring the spirit and fortitude of its diabolical owner. Now it made him think of a decaying house left to rot on some haunted hill, its owners having packed up and left long, long ago.

"I'm coming in with you." Clara said.

"No, no stay in the car. Keep the engine running."

"What if that robot of his is inside? What if it's killed Zim?"

He had thought of just such a likely scenario himself. And hadn't wanted to accept it.

"Dib?" She shouted when she got no forthcoming answer. She was staring at him, aghast, through the windshield. Like a shambling survivor fresh from a zombie apocalypse, Dib hobbled to the trunk of the car after slamming the side door shut, and headed onto the sidewalk and down the little stone porch.

He approached that door with lethal fear in his heart. He knocked his sore fists, both of them, on that door, until he was hammering them upon the wood with fixated urgency.

Dib felt like this was a reoccurring thing that was quickly becoming too normal. When Zim was so blissfully youngish and healthy, he'd come to the door when so much as a leaf touched the welcome mat, or when the postman dropped his junk mail on the sidewalk: he'd he out there, flaunting his fist about him and screaming obscenities until the whole street could hear his rants. Nothing ever got past him, and his energy was about as explosive as a geyser.

Dib pressed his ear to the door. He couldn't hear the sound from the TV, which was a little eerie. Usually the TV was always on, on account of Gir.

Getting out the keys that Zim had given him, he slipped them into the lock and turned them deftly. The lock opened and he swung the door inward.

Though it was brighter outside, due to the heavy ambience of the streetlights, and the car's accommodating headlights slamming back the atrophy of night, the lounge inside was menacingly dark as if something within was sucking out all natural light and life. Dib was a little reluctant to even close the door because if he did, he'd close off the shafts of golden headlights glowing upon his back. But close it he did, and he quickly went to turn on Zim's standing lampshade. The meek light, weak somehow in the elaborate darkness, helped soothe the atmosphere, but it only helped Dib see the destruction before him. The TV was completely broken, its large screen smashed to bits as if something had been thrown into it. Another lamp had fallen; its glass bulb had scattered and now its remains glinted in the fibres of the carpet. Not much further from it lay a small, dark body beside the ripped sofa.

It was too quiet in here. Too dead. There was always something humming: machines never needing sleep. Apparatuses that never stopped working. And there was a certain dead coldness that breathed in here, as cold as the late winter moaning outside. It seemed to blanket the lounge, submerging the place into a tomb-like ambience. Zim had to keep the place warm to suit his aging body. It had never been cold like this. Not even during the few times that Zim left to visit the distant galaxies.

Dib approached that little body lying close to the couch. His foot landed on a little hand devoid of a thumb and there was a distinct crunch of metal. Dib stepped back, kneeled down and gently, carefully pulled out the mangled body of a S.I.R unit.

It was Gir.

He sucked in a tight breath. "What the fuck?"

He tapped the robot's chassis cautiously, knowing how much damage Zim's child could cause in the blink of an eye. Was he sleeping? Or was he dead? Could robots even be... dead?

"Gir?" He was ready to bounce back should Gir swing into obscene life like some puppet from a horror movie. But Gir did not move, at all. His eyes were freakishly dark and no light shone out from them, making them look foreboding in their gripping uncharacteristic blackness.

Bits and pieces of Gir had been slung about the place, as if some playful child had thrown them to the four winds. He found a metallic foot under the sofa, and a limp hand under Zim's coffee table and a S.I.R unit antenna as far back as the kitchen. It lay by a very silent fridge. Gir had not just been destroyed. He had been dismembered.

"What the hell happened here?" He looked about him, deciding to address the computer. "Computer, where is Zim?"

He expected a reply straight away, and if he did not get the answer he wanted, he was at least prepared for the: 'you do not have authority to access that information blah, blah, blah.' But what he was NOT expecting was silence. Just silence in its absoluteness.

"Computer?" He tried again, thinking that the audio sensors had simply not picked up his verbal communication, "Hellooo? Where is Zim? Tell me what's going on!"

His voice echoed, adding to the eerie appeal of the house's dark confines.

Zim's computer always came back with a swift reply, and always regarded him as a threat, albeit a mild one. So where were the security protocols? The warnings? The spout of jargon-induced information it usually threw at him?

Now he was beginning to understand why the lounge was so eerily dark and quiet. The computer maintained a lot of the internal lights, as well as everything else. If there was no computer, there'd be no lights. But if there was no computer... there no power.

He cautiously went around Gir's body, and saw that the back panel of the robot had been forcibly ripped open, exposing wires and tubes from within. These delicate wires had been slashed open, revealing their filaments. The robot wasn't getting up any time soon.

He went back into the lounge, accidently brushing his legs together (yeah that hurt) and saw for the first time the jacket on the sofa's seat cushion. In his confusion and emotional loss of familiarity in this room, he had completely overlooked it. He approached the leavings, and saw that it was the patchwork jacket he had made for Zim; all beautifully and carefully folded.

Yes. Zim had been here.

Dib touched the tatty material, some of it stained in old Irken blood.

Because he was a nostalgic, emotional human being, he picked it up and hugged it to his chest. It still smelled of Zim.

He turned to the wall and hit the button for the bookcase. The shelving unit swung outward to the left, and Dib, due to his height, had to duck through the hidden opening that was more suited for tiny little Irkens.

He stepped into the conduit, holding the tiny jacket to his chest, but the elevator did not move. In fact, the whole place was fairly dark, and lit up by emergency red lighting only. Cursing, he took the stairs, and decided to go to the mainframe level where the source of the data was kept. If the fix was as simple as putting a plug back into its socket, he'd do it, and get the power up and running again.

All the while as he journeyed as fast as his sore legs would allow, he called for remote access, hoping for a response. But the computer remained loyally silent.

The mainframe room was also lit up with emergency lighting, giving the place a red, ambient glow that did not sit well with the human. He looked for Zim, but did not see him. He had to be prepared, fearing he was going to find Zim's dead body. It was an eventuality. Zim was old. It was going to happen. BUT if Irken protocol followed suit, then the Fall would take his body, and there will be no corpse to discover and bury.

The giant mainframe console he had stood at more than a week ago stood dark and grim in the poor lighting. The main view screen was clearly on the fritz; dashes of static buzzed over the screen randomly as if it had lost reception. All that remained was a static-ridden Irken logo. Power was draining. Everything was draining or had already shut down.

He approached the touch screen panel and tried to activate it, the little jacket slung over one arm, but it was stuck on the Irken symbol and failed to work.

"Computer!" He hoarsely shouted, "Computer! Respond!"

Not a flicker of a voice, a sound, or a ghostly reprisal.

"What have you done, Zim?"

It was a terrible sin, to once have such unique, dependable technology, only to turn it obsolete. What was Zim thinking? Was this a deliberate act to achieve something Dib failed to see? Or was this an act of protocol? Everything Zim did was by the book, mostly. True, he was given to acts of blind hostility, sometimes without thinking. Had he disabled his base - his communications on purpose? Why would an Irken cut himself off like that deliberately?

 _Unless he's preparing for something. Preparing to die._

Knowing that the computer would never function again, Dib sadly turned away from the mainframe and proceeded to the stairs once more. If there was one place Zim would choose to languish, then he knew exactly where it was.

Everywhere else was dark, and turning colder. Even the filters that made the air breathable had seemed to have stopped working, because to Dib the air tasted stale, and he felt like he couldn't breathe in enough air with each and every intake.

The whole base was turning into a giant tomb.

"Zim?"

His voice had that unearthly echo to it, something he would never normally notice if the base was humming with life and ventilation.

He proceeded along with shaky determination. He had no idea what he'd see, or what he'd find. He had to keep reminding himself that he was thirty three, and that he was a man. But when he reached level 7, he felt like he was tiptoeing everywhere. And the skin beneath his bandages was now throbbing. He had done way too much walking for someone who was supposed to be using a wheelchair.

The place was very different without its power and computer influence. It gave him a dark, haunted feeling as if he was trudging through a desiccated alien base lost in time and warmth. The atmosphere was cold too, the processors that kept each level warm had been shut down, and the coldness from the earth around the base had started to seep in through the metal walls. He wondered how long Zim's base had been without power for.

Warmth was the height of Zim's needs, and it was confusing as to why the alien would allow this change to happen.

As he approached the panic room/resting chamber, he saw that the lockdown was in full effect.

There was no way in.

Heavy doors sealed up the one entrance and no amount of drilling or explosions could bypass them.

How Zim had managed to activate these doors without proper power was a little daunting, and something Dib was curious to learn. It was possible that it still activated on emergency power.

He walked up to the doors and knocked on it. The door was so thick and massive that his knuckled knock didn't make a sound.

"Zim? Are you there?"

He stood at the door, arms carefully folded in front of him to avoid upsetting his burns.

Several seconds ticked by and the doors did not move aside.

It was hard to believe or even think that Zim could possibly feel guilty. But Dib was still learning much about him. Maybe in old age, Zim had picked up new emotions, some unwanted?

"Fuck!" _Okay, calm down Dib! Think man, think! Check the autodoc! Yeah, sounds good! Sounds fantastic!_

He walked down the abysmally lit corridor that was once the warmest section in the whole base, and was now as gelid as the rest of it. Ahead of him lay the large glass autodoc, a biblical example of technology at its finest suited for preserving and salvaging life, not destroying it, like everything else around here was dedicated to. But instead of its solid metal base and glass shield he was once familiar with, it was encased fully in a black marble-like coating that was as solid as sea rock. It looked like a large ebony coffin with no foreseeable way inside.

"ZIM!"

He _had_ to be in there! Why else was it closed?

He jammed his fingers under the 'lid' of the supposed coffin, thinking that he could tip the lid off this thing as easily as all that. But it was ineluctably solid, and nothing budged. He may as well have been trying to lift the Pyramid of Giza from its foundations.

The shiny, dark liquor of its marbled top just barely reflected the emergency lighting and the ghostly apparition of Dib's own face glaring down at the impregnable lid.

"ZIM!" He clapped both hands on the surface of the coffin – _stop thinking it's a coffin! It's meant to be a life preserver! Why does it look like a sarcophagus? –_ and the little patchwork jacket spilled down his arm and onto the sterilised floor panels. Slapping on the coffin/autodoc's lid hurt his hands. He could imagine both palms bleeding from his efforts, and didn't stop to care. "Open up! Open up right now you stupid space monster!"

 _What if he's dead inside?_

His inner world might just collapse on the instant; his mindscape disappearing into the ground like buildings would in the midst of a huge earthquake.

The human turned to the autodoc's touch screen panel, the very panel he had manipulated not all that long ago to diagnosis and then support Zim's collapsing organs. The panel was an ardent red, and on it once again was the frozen Irken logo, and below it, captioned in English, were the clear-cut words, **FALL SEQUENCE INITIATED. STEPS 1 AND 2 COMPLETE. FINAL DEPARTURE COMMENCING.**

It was the apotheosis of all his fears.

"Zim! It's me! I'm here for you! Open up! Please! Don't you hurt me this way!"

He looked around. Saw some instrument. It was a rod, used for laundry or drips or tubes, who cares. He picked it up, his turbulent brain on autopilot, and raised it high above his head before he smashed it downwards in a great sweeping arc of both hands, slamming it across the insuperable lid of the autodoc. The rod broke into three pieces, bouncing off the lid like glass. He dented the lid, and he felt along the newly scarred furrow with a scalded finger.

His eyes cast around for more things to throw on it, surprised at his own angry strength. The pain in his body had stopped existing, and only raw, feverish emotion remained.

Perched almost helpfully on a console by the autodoc was the Absolute. Its glossy blue pulses signalling its charge remained fully primed. Dib approached it, propelled by purpose, and slipped its cool, plastic casing into his bandaged fingers.

There was no way he was going to leave him. He could imagine himself making a camp outside the autodoc, and making tools to break in with, even if it took the rest of his life. In any case, this plasma cartridge gun might just hasten things along.

So he rose the nozzle of that ballistic gun, not sure of the power it would grant him, not sure if it would even knock him off his feet or not shoot at all.

His hands were cold. But his face was hot, and sweat slipped out of the cracks in his bandages.

He lifted it, aiming for the coffin lid.

One finger squeezed on that tiny, Irken-passable trigger. A shot of the finest blue zoomed out of it, as freely as a shooting star, and smacked deeply into the autodoc's left corner casing. Plasma ate away at the marble-like exterior, like fire ants devouring banana peel, exposing the inner circuitry and secretive tubing. The touch screen panel replaced its expressed finality with new warnings. **System failure. Autodoc compromised. Cannot complete current directive.**

Then the lid cracked open.

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 **Dib07:** Feel that cliffhanger burn! Feel it! HAHAHAHAHAHA! *no regrets*


	34. Guilty All the Same

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

"Zim! Listen to me! I'm not here to hurt you! Or cut you open! Please understand! I'm trying to save you!"

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine.

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 **A/N:**

 **BirdNerd03,** this chapter is dedicated to you! You have been a true dear friend and I love your admirable pictures in a way I struggle to express because they mean so much to me on so many profound levels. They are full of love and I do not know how to thank you in return!

xxxx

 **Edit: This chapter has been better polished, and content added since last it was submitted way back in December so that it makes a bit more sense! Love, Dib07**

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 **Guest**

Don't worry, even I don't think I can handle this fic anymore! LOL! (cover your eyes please!)

 **Guest**

Having Clara react towards Zim back in the hospital like that hurt me immensely too. I'd so carefully built them up, only to watch my efforts all fall down like a 'perilous house of cards.' Lol. And yeah, I can totally understand you being at odds if Zim should go to the Fall or not. It's what he wants. But is it really? Does Zim even know? Thank you for the review, and sorry for the cliffhangers! XD Again and again! I hate them too when I'm reading someone else's story when I don't know what's going to happen! XD

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 **CHAPTER 34 (40): Guilty All the Same**

"That pesky _insane_ son of mine!"

This was what Dib's father kept chanting on repeat as he frustratingly dressed back into his work clothes, buttoning up buttons, slamming back goggles over his eyes and stamping into his boots in the semi dark of his office. He had not long got back to the lab, had not long in fact, rested his head on his pillow after having a good long shower. He had also been about ready to doze off; just about to see the pictures of his dreams, when the phone on the study room table began to ring. And when you get a phone call in the dead hours of the night, you know it was not for casual conversation. He had been fretting about his reckless son all day and night, and expected to hear a doctor proclaim his son's premature death, or another inevitable coma. But it was neither one of those two things.

His son had escaped the hospital. Like the mad loony that he was.

The professor knew he should have restrained that boy to his bed! And sedated him too for ample measure! He had foolishly believed that his son had left his wild, crazy days of adolescence well behind him. He was a man now, was engaged and had a job, even if his father mightily disapproved of his career choice but even the professor had to admit that not everyone was a winner, his blood kin included. So it disturbed Prof. Membrane to learn, or rather, to re-discover that his boy was still crazy.

He could, as it was, deny active participation and go back to bed. How nice that would be! But he loved his children, even if they were a bit odd. So, grumbling out woebegone tirades about his son's mental aptitude or lack thereof, the tired father turned off all the lights save the one in the hallway, and locked the door behind him, trudging out into crisp, bitter pancake snow across his pathway to his hydro car. Plumes of grey escaped the top collar guarding his mouth as he cursed and chanted. "Children. All children." He kept repeating, even long after he had got into his car and had reversed down the snowy-entombed driveway. "What am I going to do with them? Children! All children!"

It was a shame he could not predict his children as well as he could predict chemical reactions, physics, biological evolutionary steps and the general law of cause and effect. Dib had this insane way of stepping out of the usual trajectory of natural equilibrium and spinning everything on its head. He came home with broken bones. Or bits of alien equipment in his arms or in his hair. Sometimes he came home almost smoking with radiation. Other times he'd have an infected claw mark stencilled across his body, or a stinking black eye. And one day, a board of wires and broken bits of wood like he'd been out hunting wild cougars. They'd even been something small, frayed and black hanging out of one of the meshes of wire. And to commemorate these battle trophies, Dib would spout alien tales of space crafts, frenzied sci-fi battles and endless Zim-did-this, Zim-made-such-and-such, and Zim-nearly-conquered-something-or-other monologues that would sometimes last as much as an hour until Dib ultimately realized that his father had stopped paying attention after the first two minutes of these much anecdotes.

Such was Professor Membrane's curse. And when his son was particularly stupid, (getting himself into a point-of-no-return situation for example), his father had stepped with composed staidness and had made it all right again. Because that's what fathers did. Even if it meant prolonging his son's madness.

And so, with this in mind, the professor placed his gloved hands on the steering wheel, and shafted his hydro car into its one and only gear. It was that moment when he would have to step in again.

xxx

Dib stared down at it, like he was watching an egg starting to hatch open, or a coffin lid slowly and steadily being pushed to one side to emit a wary vampire with nothing but hunger on his mind.

The lid was opening all by itself, as designated by the system perhaps to expel the Irken inside if and when protocol dictated of it when procedures were compromised.

He ditched the plasma gun to one side, not wanting to appear aggressive, should the iniquitous Irken soldier rise up and see him standing there, holding it.

Oxygen was expelled from the underside of the opening lid that exhaled out into the cold atmosphere like evil smoke. The lid flipped up horizontally, its hard casing revealing the vulnerable creature tucked away inside. Dib edged forwards as much as his deep burns would allow, his fingers convulsively clutching the autodoc's cold, marble-like sides.

At first he was too afraid to look inside, too afraid to see the death that awaited his sanity. But look he did, and there Zim was, lying small amongst heated coils and tubing like a cryogenically frozen creature from a sci-fi movie. His claws were clasped restfully over his sternum, and he was clad in some very unusual fuchsia attire. It did not escape the middle aged investigator that the Irken also wore a strange dark purple emblem on his forehead. His wrinkled eyes however, were shut tight, and the dramatically loud opening of the autodoc had not elicited a single response: not even proving loud enough to stimulate his right antenna to twitch.

"Zim!" Dib breathed out in stun-locked awe – awe that was simultaneously smothered in trepidation. "Zim?"

 _Such elaborate clothing..._ his mind kept broadcasting, as if somewhere he had the answers stored within. But he had no answers, only empty questions that burned as deeply as the pain quietly smouldering away like hot coals underneath his wraps.

"Zim!" He reached in, poking his shoulder; a shoulder that was covered in an unusual pauldron-thing that ended in an upturned point. He had never seen diversity in Irken uniform aside from Zim's bland, invader garb. But it was remarkably... handsome for a born soldier. "Zim!" His hoarse whisper broke into an ardent shout that bitterly echoed within the all-too-quiet chamber. His next series of polite prods became rude, stern nudges as he tried to shake his old friend awake. He was done with panicking – he had done quite enough of that already after waking up to find himself glued to a hospital bed with a body wrapped to the nines in bandages, but curdling dark desperation came to him from all four corners again in heaping strokes.

From all of his fretful nudges, Zim's clawed hands drifted from their restive positions and slipped down his sides to rest anew in a boneless fashion. Additional wrinkles were carved sharply around his eyes, curling downwards like cracks in his pale green skin.

He was not rousing to all these hard stimuli.

Dib thought about flicking his right antenna. It had curled downwards, lying inertly beside the Irken's head. There was no sleep too deep that would ignore _that_ kind of a prod. But he was still so wholesomely guilty about ruining the left one that he couldn't bring himself to be so cruel.

"Zim? Wake up space monster! I'm in your base again! Without your permission, again!"

 _What if he's... dead? No! No, no! He still had strength enough to stand and walk with me through Maple Park!_

Dib leaned over a little more, bending enough to plant his ear upon the invader's chest: a chest sheltered in uncomfortable armour that made the whole process an awkward one. At first, he could hear nothing, just the shaky labours of his own lungs and the pulse of his own adrenaline-spiked heart rate. He really had to hold in the reins, and force himself to be patient, and not to move away and be carried off by panic just yet.

Then, and only then could he hear the arbitrary beats of an alien heart, and the thin, wheezy whistle of breath.

He was alive.

Dib leaned away again, looking down at his aging alien with new perplexity that slowly leaked through his relief.

Was he unconscious due to his failing PAK? Or did the autodoc automatically prepare its Irkens for its voyage to the Fall by inducing some kind of hibernative sleep to make it all the more... comfortable and seamless for their final trip?

Maybe the sooner he got Zim out of the autodoc, the sooner the Irken would revert back to his normal conscious wellbeing? Perhaps the computer had filled the autodoc chamber up with a gas to knock the soldier out? This way, in their barbaric militarism, this would prevent any Irken having second thoughts.

Dib also knew, in the dire reaches of his mind where all things 'guilt' resided, that he was denying this soldier his final funeral expedition. But right now it wasn't on his worry list. A conscious pissed-off Zim was much better than an unconscious Zim.

He moved his hands around and then behind Zim's body, and lifted the back of his head up first, preparing to lift him into his arms when he came upon a surprising obstruction. Extending from the middle of the PAK was a steel cord that ran into the flat bed of the autodoc, like some kind of perverted umbilicus. It ran to its full length of about one foot before it ran taut. It kept Zim tethered; chained as he was to his coffin.

"Fucking great!" He haggardly whispered, biting down on sore, scalded lips. He had lifted Zim part way, only to have the PAK snag on this cord. Beside him, on the glassy surface of the autodoc panel, new lettering appeared:

 **FAILSAFE EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ENGAGED. AUTODOC FALL SEQUENCE FAILED. COMMAND CENTRE TO SELF DESTRUCT IN T-MINUS 40 MINUTES. ALL OTHER DIRECTIVES ABANDONED. FINAL SEQUENCE INITIATING.**

Dib's eyes were instantly like that of a cartoon character as they widened to the extremes.

Zim's base was going to blow up in less than an hour whether he had deported to the Fall or not!

"No!" He gently plopped Zim back down again so that he could try and reason with the touch-screen panel by slamming a bandaged hand against it. "No! Revoke that order, computer! Annul it! Now! You stupid piece of..."

The countdown had begun on the little screen. The numbers began to roll backwards as if he was looking at an armed bomb. **SELF-DESTRUCT IN: 39:54**

He remembered, (days, or was it weeks ago?) when the computer had helpfully given him the details prior:

" _And if he dies? What will become of his base?"_

" _Under the Control Brain code 12, any Irken entity who becomes 'deceased' is automatically evaluated, its body deported back to the Tallest, or if there is a disease present, it is deported to the Fall."_

" _The Fall?"_

" _Correct. It is a cold, dead planet where unwanted Irken carcasses get burned for fuel for ships. Or compost. Under remote control from the Massive, the base self-destructs, leaving no trace of the alien. These precautions are standard. Every Irken who is off his or her home planet are aware of these protocols."_

" _That means you'll get destroyed too!"_

" _That is correct."_

And what had Zim said in his recording to Dib?:

" _In due course, my body will be taken to the Fall, and the base will be destroyed."_

Zim had obviously installed no other fail-safes should he change his mind. He had burnt his bridges – all of them, and had no inclination to leave anything behind of his existence; willing to burn it all – for the welfare of his Empire: an Empire that cultivated and nourished such blind devoutness. And Dib could not stop the train - this domino effect - of Irken command. It had all been set in motion long before.

As the numbers slipped down to their thirty seventh minute, Dib sat Zim up again, inspecting the trailing metallic cord with his eyes. It was hooked to the PAK, and there was no knowing if the extension cord came from the PAK itself, or it was a construct of the autodoc. He hoped it was the latter. It would be easier to deal with if that were so.

Experimentally, he tugged Zim against the resistance. But the cord wasn't about to detach from so simple a pull here and a push there. Its purpose was to hold the Irken to the container's floor as the autodoc jettisoned out into space so that the occupant inside wouldn't be splattered everywhere. A strange dignity, considering the body of the soldier would be donated to feed Irken warships or whatever else their decomposing body would be used for.

He glanced aimlessly around for some kind of emergency pull-cord in the autodoc's confines; a button that might release the imprisoned soldier, or a: 'I'd-like-to-stop-all-this-now-please' switch. What there was to see were lots of intestinal tubes, wires and flashing little lights along the interior that did not enlighten Dib anymore than he was already. And as he held the little Irken upright in his arms, his wilted head just about clearing the opening of the autodoc, a long, winding shiver tore through the alien's little body, throwing him into jerky spasms that lasted for only a few shy seconds, but to the poor person holding him; it seemed to go on forever.

 _Must be the cold in here, or it's a result of whatever gas he's inhaled. I don't freaking know!_ Dib let loose a frustrated moan. "Zim! Wake up! Zim! Help me out here!"

Wouldn't it be nice, to send him a mental message, interrupting _his_ broadcast, and throw a fist into his face for once?

The autodoc, having once upon a time given Dib great relief, and provided serenity for his soul, had now become his greatest enemy.

With a numb, bandaged hand, he kept fumbling around for a switch or a button inside the interior. Moving his arm in any way made the bandages grind at his armpit, torturing the burns wrapped up inside.

 _The gun! The plasma gun!_ The thought was like an explosion of coherent wisdom, and he snatched it up and aimed it at the little cord anchoring the Irken to the autodoc's floor.

He worried about the plasma residue, and that, if the bolt should strike and melt the cord, what if some of it landed on Zim's PAK like acid? He looked for something to use as a shield to cover himself and Zim with, and saw the little patchwork jacket lying down in a fold by his knee. Though it wasn't exactly an aegis of metal, it was better than using nothing at all.

He layered a portion of its black fabric across Zim's PAK, and used the last bit of arm sleeve to cover his own arm holding Zim. Then, keeping one eye open in a cowardly squint, he aimed the Absolute at the end of the cord furthest from Zim: at its very root at the container's floor.

 _This is my last chance to give Zim what he wants._ A sullen voice drifted upwards from the dark bowels of his mind where he kept his sombre thoughts buried. Occasionally one such thought would bubble up to the surface, brutishly shunting aside all others. _He'll be destroyed with the base._ _If I break this cable, there's no going back. Not for me, and not for him._

 _If this is what he wants, why then, did he break into my mind? If that was indeed what he did?_

He answered his own question because it came to him so naturally. _For closure. To make sure I would live. That was enough for him._

 _Face it, Dib you moron._ His addled thoughts interjected with venom. _There's no denying that melancholy you felt from him 'if' he really DID contact you! You think he'll be happy about this? Happy that you're renouncing him from his purpose? His sense of final conformity? This here is an Irken that failed his one life's mission. And now you're making him fail at this as well. You are denying him his Death Rites. You monster!_

Then, as if to make matters worse, the voice added mockingly: _and what will you do with his body, huh? When all is said and done, and he can't be fixed, you'll have an alien corpse on your hands. Then what? You've thought of this before, I know you have! And the solution is still nowhere in sight!_

"I made a promise." He said aloud to his own personal demons and to the Irken in question, "And I'm not turning my back on you, Zim. Morons have got to stay together."

He pressed on the little handle of the Absolute, and the acknowledged pressure procured a bolt of plasma that shot outwards in a livid white ball likened to molten lava. The strip of cord was promptly vaporised, and the splashing plasma struck the interior of the autodoc, leaving pocked smoking holes where the plasma ate through the furnished metal. The cord itself had melted through the middle, and a tapered part of it, furry with electric fibres within, sparked with blue voltage. The cord running out of Zim's PAK was equally fried, and, as though disposing of a dead, useless limb, the PAK seemed to eject it, and the bit of cable fell out of its port.

Now free and no longer tethered, Dib was fully able to scoop the armoured Irken into his arms and push away from the autodoc with a hiss of pain from his tender limbs. He stood up on aching legs that eternally scuffed against his bandages and he left the Absolute and smoking patchwork jacket behind.

Even holding Zim had its consequences. His added weight, though hardly substantial for a healthy Irken, still put pressure on his plasma-induced injuries. Several times he wanted to put Zim down just to avoid the pain.

 _I need to get him to the Professor as soon as possible. If he's been sleep-induced by the autodoc he might wake up soon. Or he might not. There's still so much I don't know, and I wish I had had the time to learn! Now he's set to blow it all up! His base! His home! His everything! And if it all goes, how are we ever to fix his PAK? He's said goodbye to all of it! He doesn't want to heal! He wants to die!_

He left the level that whispered dark mordant secrets at his back, and walked up the stairs steadily, until he came out into the lounge. He avoided Gir, who still lay here, there and everywhere on the floor. Luckily Zim's eyes were still drawn shut and so he did not see what remained of his most beloved robot child.

Dib noticed that the soft parts between Zim's plates of armour felt warm, and crinkly, like silk on a fine dress. He gathered that there was a more morbid reason why he had traded his standard invader outfit for something more... flamboyant. It had to be funeral garb. And he suddenly, inexplicitly wanted Zim out of it. And the insignia printed on his forehead was like a badge of office; representing his rank in death. There seemed to be no reprieve from Zim's military directive, even for his last moments.

Dib opened the door, and a brush of fresh wind and snow dappled them both in white confetti. Clara's car engine was still brightly humming away, the headlights cutting a sure, defiant path through the darkening gloom.

There was a great, unhealthy rasp against his chest as the elderly Elite wheezed in a difficult inhale. Both his antennae were wilted lengths of string; one cocked in its eternal crooked, broken fashion, the other limp and useless. His skin, under the strong streetlights, was white. Smudges of green remained beneath his wrinkled eyes and throat, and that was all that remained of his once lime coloured skin. But he was breathing in clean, cold air. Though still unconscious, the winter air might help push out the lingering cobwebs of gas within his chest, or stimulate his PAK to wake his organic mind. Surely this would happen? Now that he had been stolen from his coffin?

Dib, clutching the poorly Irken close, dashed down the footpath, across the slippery sidewalk and over to the car door. He snatched it open, climbed in and grabbed at the blanket Clara was offering him. Hastily he bundled Zim up in it before shutting the door. Even this rancorous sound of the car door slamming failed to wake Zim, but he did deliver a brittle, agonizing cough that made both humans jump slightly.

"Drive, Clara!" He told her. "Drive to my place! Jesus it's cold out here!" He could smell the bitter diesel fumes that had greased into the air from the running engine. At least the car was warm. She had dialled up the internal heating to full.

Clara hit the pedal, and the car bumped down the curb and onto the road.

Dib kept Zim close to his chest, fearing his wrath should he wake so close to his bandaged body. He could feel the Irken's claws hinge and unhinge like rebellious pliers under the woolly old car blanket as if he was dreaming.

The interior seatbelt light on the dashboard was blinking because he had failed to wrest himself into its straps.

He felt Zim's arduous inhales as he breathed in warmed air from the car's heater.

Clara slammed her hand on the horn of her steering wheel, beeping loudly. They had a slow driver in front. She couldn't afford any attention from the law, so she didn't overtake, even though it was all she wanted to do.

"Dib... Dib he sounds really bad." Clara kept trying to snatch glimpses at the creature he held while trying to keep steady hands on the steering wheel. "Why are his eyes closed? Why is he breathing like that?"

"Clara, the road!"

She fetched her eyes back on the way ahead, and had to slam on the brakes to keep from hitting the slow driver in front. Whether it was due to the suddenness of the brakes, the lukewarm heat in the cabin of the car, or simply due to the advancement of PAK corrosion, Zim became boneless in Dib's arms, his dull eyes opening to slits, only to roll back into his skull. That's when the seizures began. Slowly at first, like electrical currents misfiring in his brittle thin limbs, then the misfires grew more and more progressive and continuous until the Irken's whole body was trembling violently from his head down to his bony toes.

"Jesus! Zim!" Dib did not know what to do. Everything else had had a solution to overcome, more or less.

"Keep his head up! And keep his airway open!" Clara cried, her eyes straining to keep on the road. "It's a convulsion!"

Zim's legs kicked and bounced, his arms curling up from the massive overthrow of muscles contracting. His head slammed hard against the interior car door, and Dib quickly snatched his hand against the Irken's skull so that the violent incident could not be repeated.

The slow driver in front was turning left. Now, with nothing out in front of them, Clara increased the car's steady acceleration and she flew down the empty stretch of road.

The trip itself was only three miles. Zim lived in a heavy residential area, and Dib lived beside open fields and woodland. But a normal fifteen minute trip had become sheer agony lasting far longer than it should.

The seizures aggressively continued to throw Zim's body into random, endless paroxysms that were mostly silent. An occasional tight whimper would be thrown out of the invader's throat, and Dib had no idea if the Irken was conscious, semi-conscious or not conscious at all. He tried to keep shoring Zim upright, tried to keep his airway open, and felt the all too real arching of his bony back, the flex of his jaws gnashing, and the supple, straining jerk of his legs and arms. He wasn't even sure if Zim could breathe through it.

"Clara! What do I do?"

"Keep him breathing!" Her voice was an anchor to his flooding panic. "And don't squeeze him too tightly. He's in shock. In a few minutes the fits will weaken."

 _How do you know that?_ He thought almost angrily.

His heart had never dropped so low in his chest.

He thought of mind connecting. It sounded ridiculous, and something he would never admit out loud to Clara or to anyone. After all, it could not possibly be done; for one thing, he didn't have the cerebral development Irkens had in order to produce this advanced psychic clairvoyance. Yet it did not stop him from trying. Focusing hard on mentally sending Zim all the love and comfort he could think of, he drew the alien's forehead close to his until they were touching. He closed his eyes, willing, praying for his thoughts to get through, to lay down Zim's irresolute walls of fright and desolation.

Coincidentally or not, Zim's thick, tortured spasms that juggled his old bones softened gradually, allowing only an occasional leg or arm to stiffen up, bend and shudder. The rest of his body fell limp.

The worst seemed to be over, and Dib hugged him thankfully in a fierce, desperate grip, rocking him back and forth in his arms.

Clara guided the car up Dib's driveway, and parked behind his Toyota. She got out first, opened the side door for him so that he could step out, and then she hurried on high heels over to his front door to unlock it. Snow brushed against them as softly as fast-moving feathers, getting in their hair and on their clothing. The door opened, and Clara went on through, flicking on every light to smack out the inner darkness. Dib went on in after her, his arms full of bundled-up Irken, one hand supporting Zim's rear as he pressed him up against his collarbone, while his other hand fetched his little shoulders to his chest. Using his foot, he kicked the door closed behind them

The first thing he did was rest Zim on his sofa. He arranged some cushions, and snuck a few down under the Irken's heavy head. Clara observed the alien for a moment, her thoughts elsewhere as she pulled off the red puffy coat from her shoulders. Snow was still in her hair.

"I'll explain everything!" Dib kept promising in a relentless spiel, standing there, dark circles round his eyes.

"Is he asleep?" She asked.

"I don't know! I guess so." At that, Dib began to pace, like he frequently did as a grossly obsessed kid in his former glory days. Clara knelt down, half-pulled off coat still around her waist, and touched Zim's forehead, just below the strange dark symbol that looked as if it had been painted there. As much as she tried seeking a pulse; her cool fingers pressing against his throat where every animal or beast should have a carotid artery, she could not find one, even after removing one of his glamorous crimson gauntlets to examine his tiny, bony wrist.

Dib was still pacing, chewing at his dry, blistered lips and at times muttering profusely at himself when he re-hurt something.

"Dib? Where do you keep your spare blankets?"

"Oh. Over there, in the cupboard next to the TV stand."

Clara, dumping her coat on the floor that was still wet with melting snow, grabbed an armful of soft, multicoloured blankets and began to dutifully wrap and swaddle the tiny Irken in them. Zim moaned softly during this delicate transition, but his eyelids remained firmly closed. The wrinkles looked especially deep below his eyes, and additional creases had spread outwards from the edges of his mouth. Wrinkles had even begun to form rings around his throat. The whiteness in his skin remained, allowing small blemishes of forgotten-green to linger in the few contours of his face.

"What happened?" Clara asked, her voice all business-like. Her eyes were glued on Zim all the while as if he held as much significance as a sick human being.

"I have no idea!" He lumbered to a stop, grimacing just as a languid breeze flowed through his bones. It was a shame he couldn't just tumble into his own dear bed and sleep for a few weeks or so.

Her voice was sharp, and cut into his armour like an axe through wood. "Yes you do! You know more than me! You like to keep me out of the circle! You are just as bad as your alien here!"

"He's not 'my' alien! If he was, I'd be the world's biggest hero! My face would be on every magazine!"

"He is _your_ alien!" She reprimanded, her amber eyes burning with gold fire, or it might have just been the lounge lights. He was too tired to tell.

"I... I don't know. Really I don't." Dib said. "I tried ringing him in the hospital. You know he never picked up. What I do know is that his robot Gir is in pieces, and Zim had obviously prepared himself for his final exodus into space. I found him in his autodoc. It had become his coffin."

"What does that mean?"

Dib pinched his eyes closed, then opened them again. How could he explain this to her really simply? "You know the Ancient Egyptians, and how, when the Pharaoh died, they mummified his body and put him on a funeral boat to take his remains to his burial chamber?"

"Yes."

"Well, Zim's version is mostly like that. Only in space. To a planet to be recycled."

"Why?"

"Look, ask him! He's the moron!" He was chaffing at his own anger. Then he took a deep breath, and added almost as an apology, "That metal thing on his back is failing. If it stops working, so does his body. It's wired up to his cardiovascular and neurological system in layman's terms. I've been trying to get my dad to have a look at him, but Zim refused all help unless Gir was dealt with first."

"Your father? The professor?"

"Yeah." Dib scratched the back of his head nervously, even though manipulating his arm in such an ordinary position now hurt. "He doesn't know Zim's an alien. I was kinda hoping he'd go in wearing his disguise."

"You're trying to fool the very man who's developed renewable water from the sea, and the very man who invented electric cars, and improved modern science and our general living conditions in general?"

"Y-Yeah." He replied a little sourly.

Clara just shook his head at him, then after a moment she turned her apprehensive gaze on Zim. Using delicate, soft fingers, she stroked them along Zim's skull. "You've got to contact your father, and tell him the situation. In the meantime, we've got to keep him warm and calm. How far along is his condition?"

"Pretty far. Before the incident at Maple Park, he kept holding his chest. I imagine it's because he's been in a lot of agony, and I lost his pain relief back at the hospital. He knows he was going to die. I think that was really why he wanted to ship himself off to some giant crematorium in space. He didn't want to die here; for his remains to be discovered by us. By humans. He'd rather be recycled then be some trophy to science. After all, who knows what we would learn from his corpse? But I... I..." _...Put my big foot through his carefully laid plans._ He miserably wanted to add.

"And Gir? His robot-child thing? Whom I've never met? Where is he? You say he's in pieces. Why?"

Dib blanched, suddenly feeling a great wave of guilt dash upon his mental stability. He had left him behind...

"Zim must have got his whacky computer to destroy him. Or he did it himself. Though I can hardly imagine _that_ scenario." _My brush with near-death surely would not have prompted him to act so violently towards Gir on my own behalf?_ He asked himself. This whisper of a suggestion did not gel with Zim at all; his vendettas never that personal. It just wasn't Zim's hallmark. "As for the robot, he's safely in bits in the lounge."

She stood up, looking measurably pale. "I have to go back to his home - get this Gir and a few of his things! This isn't right! We can't just have him here with nothing but the clothes he's wearing!"

Dib grabbed her arm. "Don't! There's something I glossed over – okay! His base is going to self-destruct! There... there is a countdown! It must have seventeen minutes left on the clock!"

"I'll be quick!" Clara said shortly. "In and out. As soon as I feel the ground tremble even a little, I'm in that car and racing down the road. Why did the alien...?" ... _Have his own base detonate?_ She almost asked. "Never mind that now. I have to go."

Dib wasn't even a little convinced. "No! It's too dangerous! And... and what if he... what if Zim starts having those... those fits again?"

"Just keep him breathing. Fill the kettle, and put the internal heating on! Then you need to sit down before I have two causalities on my hands! Then give him something to drink. Make sure there's sugar in it, to help him against shock. If those fits come back, count the seconds. And maintain his temperature. It's all you can do. And you need to rest. You're trembling nearly as bad as he is." She grabbed her car keys and was out the front door before he could stop her a second time. He walked painfully to the lounge window and parted the curtains just a little to see her car reverse out of the drive and onto the road. With a lasting swing of the headlights, she had turned, and was gone. His heart dropped lower still. He was afraid. And he had not thought of bringing Gir with him, even if he was in bits and pieces like the fragmented parts in a jigsaw puzzle.

x

He tackled the boiler first, knowing full well how cold it was for March, it being one of the coldest winters on record in Lincoln. He turned the internal heating to max, even though it would turn his place into a sauna. Then he filled up the kettle and left that to boil before he gathered enough blankets to fill a nursery. Hauling them under his sore arms, and dropping one or two along the way, Dib returned to the lounge in his procured stiff gait. "Okay, Dib. One thing at a time. One thing at a time."

After the kettle had boiled, he poured boiling hot water into a ceramic basin, and left it to cool. Then he filled up a mug and added in chamomile with two teaspoons of sugar. He stirred it in, pausing occasionally to try and hear if Zim was making any noises.

He wasn't.

Dib was frightened of the fits. He had felt them intimately in the car ride and wasn't too keen on seeing Zim go through them again. Why was he having them?

He carried the mug, a straw and then the ceramic bowl into the lounge one at a time, and settled them down on the thick wooden surface of the coffee table. Then he added a pile of towels and sterile cloths. Zim was still hunched up in blankets from where Clara had wrapped him up. His breathing was wheezy, and he looked somehow more lifeless than he did after Clara's surgery. He hadn't moved. Even his right antenna, usually moving rebelliously all the time like a tetchy cat's tail, remained just as stationary. It was tucked in beside his head, and hadn't edged outwards at all to pick up on sound or vibrations.

"Zim? Zim hey. You awake? You gotta drink something." He heeded his words by practising what Clara did: by stroking the ridgeline of his head with his bandaged fingers. Zim's inertia remained; lying completely still like a doll as he breathed at rough, tight intervals as though his chest was constricted. Some destructive shakes still came and went regularly like clockwork, plaguing the Irken at random intervals: each abrupt fit making the invader's legs jerk and twitch beneath their soft, downy coverlets.

Dib gently lifted up each armoured bony arm and leg from the blankets, determining any damage. Nothing appeared broken. All of Zim's limbs were thankfully intact, as was his little ribcage and pelvis – from what he could feel through the suit's plating. Even his original belly-swelling had gone down considerably, so much so that it had almost gone down to its normal size. Dib covered him back up again.

The strange insignia of a V remained on his forehead. It had smudged ever so slightly at the edges from the car ride here, but still it remained a dark, foreboding stamp of office. He lifted up one piece of armour Clara had left by the foot of the sofa. It was a creamy dark crimson gauntlet, its supple hard plating almost silky in texture when touched, but as firm as stone. Each plate was stylised to fit around so small a hand, allowing maximum flexibility for all three of the Irken's fiendishly slender claws. But the gauntlet was rather hefty, and Dib could only imagine that the rest of the armour had to be rather hefty for such a runt of an Irken to wear.

The still-present shakes seemed to shoot along Zim's body like electrical zaps.

Dib put the gauntlet down again with a lurid sense of guilt: a guilt that quietly leapt out at him from the shadows. _I left Gir behind. And I took Zim away from his last fulfilling purpose._

He lifted up his own arm, and pulled down a length of sleeve to check on the lining of bandages beneath. He felt red hot under all his wraps, as if he was cooking on the inside.

 _How long until my morphine runs dry?_ He thought obtusely. He had been so fixed on getting Zim back that he'd barely given the pain a begrudging thought. Now the pain was starting to leech away his lasting energy segment by segment. When he next stood up, cranking up his legs to support his suddenness of weight, his head was dusty with stars. He had to grab the edge of sofa to stop himself from nose-diving to the floor.

 _I've overblown it. I know I have. I should be in the hospital, resting!_

With tenacious courage, he physically had to push himself over to the phone docked on a stand by the windowsill, picked it up (wondering what the hell he had done with his mobile), and dialled his father. He meandered around in stiff steps, dark eyes sweeping over to Zim on occasion in the hopes that any noise he made might drag the invader out of his aberrant sleep.

The dial tones went on and on. It was half eleven at night. If his father wasn't working, he'd probably be sleeping – in his own private dorm in his lab across town like he often did nowadays when he no longer had a family to go home to.

Sure enough, his call went to an answering machine as it did on the majority of occasions whenever he wanted his dad for anything in a real hurry.

"You have reached the Membrane Facility. We value your call. Please standby or call us again." Came the answering machine's static reply.

Dib put the phone down on the coffee table by the untouched mug of chamomile. "Shit."

 _It's fine. Just fine. Try again in a little while. Think about it, Dib, you moron! Your father's gonna soon find out you escaped from hospital as if you escaped from prison! And he's gonna want answers. Then, then you can tell him! And he'll be crazy mad! He'll go back to thinking you're insane! And you know, for the first time ever, he might be right._

After the unsuccessful phone call, Dib limped into the bathroom, and raided the medicine cabinet above the toilet for bog-standard painkillers: anything to kill or at least dent the fine buzz of pain coming over his skin in loud, noxious strokes. The morphine was wearing thin, and he had no emergency call button to press to summon in a convenient nurse to help his situation.

He opened a blister pack of paracetamol, downed two dry, and chased them down with two additional aspirin. Then he slurped up water from the cold water faucet from the sink. Once this was accomplished, he sat on the edge of the bath, bandaged hands folded on his bandaged knees. After a moment of cogitation, he flicked his eyes upwards to spy on the bathroom clock high above the dripping sink. Clara had been gone for over ten minutes! The base... the base was set to detonate! Why wasn't she back yet?

He tried searching for his mobile phone, the Samsung one, and couldn't find it. It wasn't in his bedroom; it wasn't in the hallway, guest room or in the kitchen. It might have been lost in the transition between Maple Park and the hospital, or it had dropped out of his pocket during their Gir-chase.

Just when he was shambling back to the kitchen, full of hot pain that poked into his flesh in faster intervals, mind curdling in worry, the front key turned in the lock, and the door opened. Clara shouldered the door wide, as her hands were full of things. Under one arm was a cardboard box, and in the other was a soft carry case full of Zim's things: various clothing, Irken foods in assorted ration bags and sealed containers, packets of medicine she didn't understand but threw in anyway, packs of cleansing chalks, and on top of the pile were a few plush toys that tried to poke their heads out of the anthology of stuff.

"Clara! You cut that close! DON'T do that again!" He had never raised his voice to her, not one to get formally angry, or, if he did, he had never got hot under the collar with anything _she_ had done. But lately, Zim had done things with shocking finality that had actually worked. No longer was he the clown he once was, and the investigator fully believed that the base would explode.

"I acted like the place was filling up with poison gas! It's fine." His fiancée didn't seem too worried; as if she did not fully appreciate the danger she had been in. "Though I don't see why he'd need to destroy his home! I don't understand! But I grabbed what I could from his lounge, kitchen and back room. I didn't use the stairs behind the bookcase."

"Did the place look like it was about to come falling down?" He could not stop feeling discouraged and angry.

"No. Not at all. It was just... dark. And cold. I had to use my flashlight on my phone to see what I was grabbing. I think your alien needs to ring for an electrician."

"He's gonna need more than that." He nodded at the box, trying to keep his pain in check, even though it felt like someone was rubbing him up and down in sand. Flaming hot sand. "What's in there?"

Clara knelt down on the floor, put the soft duffel bag to one side and opened up the flaps of the box. Within, in convoluted twists and turns, limbs at a bizarre angle, the chassis upside down and the head back to front, was Gir's remains. It was a sad arrangement of Zim's robot child. If anything, he now looked like a broken third-hand toy from Ebay. Batteries not included.

Dib pulled up Gir's disembodied head from the box, and looked into its empty eyes. A few snapped wires hung down from the neck socket. Clara cocked her head at him slightly, still kneeling by the bag and cardboard box. Her tangled hair, looking almost golden auburn under the glow of the hallway lights, slipped down her shoulder in long furls. She looked tired, having spent long days and nights worrying about Dib. "Are you sure Zim took apart his most 'treasured' robot?"

"Zim's insane, how do I know? And you, you were stupid to go back there, Clara!" Dib said, unable to keep the frosty bitterness out of his voice, "Never do anything like that again, okay? I don't want you blowing up, risking your life for... for this!" And he pulled out tangled bits of Gir. "Rescuing the very robot that nearly killed me! Okay, I do feel kinda bad I left him behind, but..."

"Don't you start that tone with me!" Clara snapped back. Her sharp tone was so unexpected that he almost dropped Gir's remains. He had never heard her speak so heatedly, and a pink flush was beginning to spread outwards on her pale white cheeks. "You nonchalantly told me you'd taken the hit for Zim! That you just walked in front of this dangerous robot, and got struck!" Dib looked away, suddenly feeling defenceless. "You didn't think about anyone else, did you? What about me? What about your family? You nearly died!"

Her words; high-pitched and deeply severe, etched new frown lines into Dib's brow. In the moment, neither of them heard the quiet, almost catlike movements of a certain Irken as he lifted himself upright from the sofa, eyes slanted low in his enervation, one antenna springing aloft and then cocking all the way forwards to hear.

"It all happened too fast!" Dib had no idea she'd feel this way. But then again, he knew he should have known. He had just been blind, following his own road, and shouldering everyone out of the way to keep up with normality. Losing Zim was change he was not yet ready to deal with. "What else could I do?"

"You don't know what you look like under all those bandages and gauze! And you're not giving yourself a chance to rest! You can't do everything by yourself, Dib! Let me take on some responsibility!"

"What? You think I enjoy doing this? Rushing around, trying to juggle all of Zim's problems, as well as my own?" Clara was about to say something, when Dib overruled her. "Zim is not some sweet little creature for you to take care of, Clara! His fucked up brain has a hard time processing emotions, and he's tried to kill me, and blow up this world! More times then I can count! He can be very selfish, and malicious."

"I thought you were...?"

"Friends? We are. As much as an alien and a human can be. And the EMP didn't help."

"EMP?"

Yeah. My dad caused it. Remember that blackout we had a couple of months back? That I mentioned on the car ride to Zim's base?"

Clara had to stop and think for a mini moment. "Yes. I was on my way home from the supermarket. I remember that a lot of electric cars had cut out, and were all stranded on the road. Mine still ran on gas, and I was able to get home, but none of the electricity would work."

Dib's eyes took on a darker cast, and a shadow seemed to drift over his face. "That EMP changed something in Gir, like I said, and he turned violent like some sporadic windup toy. And Zim didn't know what to do. So he bricked the robot up in a containment room, shelving the problem, rather than eliminating it. I guess old age made him more...careful. More sentimental. I don't know. Then the alien bastard let it all fall apart and made things worse. I... I don't want to be alone, left with these bitter, unresolved memories."

Clara reached out to him, and he wrenched himself away from her. "You have me now." She said, her anger dissolving. A newer understanding of her partner was coming to the surface.

"Maybe, maybe I should have just let Zim take the hit in Maple Park and saved us all some trouble. I can't stand being human myself sometimes."

"You don't mean that. You've come a long way, Dib. You have this silent determination about you. You know in your heart what's right even though you know it's not what everyone wants. And you've sacrificed your own life for Zim. I still think it's foolish. But now I know why." She pulled him gently into her arms and he did not resist her. "So, now what do we do? You still need to go back to the hospital."

"I know that but... my dad... my dad needs to look at Zim. We've got to wake him, and make a disguise for him to wear and..."

They both heard the lounge window suddenly crank open in the midst of their emotional homecoming. Dib pulled away from her embrace and tried to crank himself back onto rebellious legs that felt more like they had been glued to wooden stilts. But she was faster, and dashed to the lounge doorway. Zim was crookedly standing by a little decorative table below the window he had managed to shunt open with an elongated metal prosthetic leg that was angling out of the metal dome on his back. Another metal strut had nailed itself to the carpet like a forbidding claw, as if to keep him balanced. The blankets on the sofa had spilled unceremoniously to the floor in great sweeping curls.

Zim glanced meaningfully across at Clara from eyes that were creased down to tired slits that were ringed in exhaustion. Despite the hide of his secure armour, to Clara he looked like a living skeleton. His cheekbones had protruded forwards, pressing through the pinched skin of his cheeks to create hollow caves, and his suit seemed to hang around his frame like it was clinging to his bones.

The little crimson cape fluttered above his PAK from the snowy exhales outside.

The open window above him was roughly one metre from Zim's reach. And he stood, pressing against the wall as if to actively evade her, should she make the first move. All he had to do was swing himself upwards. But it was notable to her that he was not yet attempting it, as if he somehow simply couldn't perform the manoeuvre.

Shambling as quickly as one could manage with third-degree burns; Dib warily stepped in beside her and took one look into the room. Zim hunched up against the wall beneath the open window even further, drawing back his lips to expose his garish teeth. His one antenna was pinned right down, his fear absolute, reminding the human of a sick-frightened animal that had woken up for the first time in alien surroundings.

Clara was about to ease her way into the lounge to get nearer, but Dib held his arm out, and reproached her from doing so. "Zim?" He asked from the doorway. "Hey! It's okay! There's no reason to be afraid! You're safe. In my home!" _He's awake!_ He was so cheerful at this prognosis, but subsequently disturbed at Zim's overwhelming fear.

Whatever had kept the Invader in hibernation had slackened, enabling his organic brain to 'rouse' enough to shamble weakly into consciousness. But scientifically, he had no real idea.

Zim's squinty eyes tweaked open a little wider as recognition swept through his hostile walls. "D-Dib? Dib!" A shy, delighted smile tugged at the left side of his lips, but he did not move from the wall, or from the window, and his two spider legs remained extended. "How I've longed to see your pithy existence continue." Translated from Zim-speak, this actually meant: _'I'm so happy you're alive!'_ His reined-in reaction was not all that dissimilar to when Dib had finally returned to him from joining his father's scientific career, though brief.

Nonetheless, his words were slurred, and his throat sounded clogged with fluids. The voice that got passed it all was so much less than it was.

"Yes! Yes I'm alive. Burnt to a crisp, but even your moronic S.I.R unit couldn't stop me." He too smiled back, though his grin was one of solemn reticence. For, at the mention of Gir, some unspoken darkness swarmed back into Zim's eyes like evil firelight, and his fragile smile twisted until it broke into a dishevelled contortion. His left leg was trembling erratically, and his left eye was slinking down further than his right. Even his left arm hung loosely at his side as if he was tender and weaker on that side.

 _Like he's having a stroke or something._ Dib feared, feeling guilt and anxiety twist up his stomach into lots of tiny cold knots.

The situation might have turned either way, but Clara couldn't contain herself any longer, and took just one step into the lounge.

Zim instantly slipped into his defensive methodology. He backed up, peddling into a magazine rack. His left leg almost went from under him, but his two PAK legs held him upright until he'd reached the far corner of the room. His last two PAK legs sprung vertically upwards like impossibly fast growing plant roots until they reached their maximum length. Then they dived downwards in front of Zim in a crisscrossing slash, caging in the invader. And keeping them out.

Cage complete, Zim slumped down onto the carpet weakly, breath storming out of his throat as if his windpipe had become as narrow as a straw.

Dib started forwards, then held himself firm when the PAK legs reacted to his one singular movement by pulsing with pink light. Any provocation and Zim would only deepen his entrenched defences. The old Elite's protective barrier was once upon a time a mental abstraction; a wilful disposition of his psyche that he happily threw up when anyone got too close to peeling back even one layer of his mentality. Now it had become a physical representation of how he felt inside.

Dib was well aware that he had now entered a psychosomatic war ground.

And Zim looked like he was not coming out of his corner any time soon, caged as he was behind his own arching PAK legs that looked as formidable as toothed spear walls. It did not help that Zim flew to conclusions faster than a top speed jet plane, and believed whatever his paranoia permitted. He was after all a Master of his own delusions. And he was clearly in a hyper emotional state, often falling back into this detrimental self-hate he always carried: it naturally being a part of his flawed state of mind.

He could never quite let go. Or to truly surrender.

And Dib had to face this hate. This paranoia. For he had been the one to take Zim away from his last delegation with no consent whatsoever.

"Zim." He started quietly, not moving for fear of how the Irken might react. "You shouldn't use your PAK for _anything._ Tuck those things away, now."

"Why am I n-not on my way to the F-Fall, Dib stink?" His crazed, dark eyes, wrinkled in lethargy, gazed snidely at Dib, and sometimes his gaze would dip to Clara and back again, as if assessing them from his little stand-off corner. His tight little claws, shaking madly, bunched up to his chest: a chest full of protruding ribs beneath his armour plating.

"Zim. You're no less of an Invader if you don't go to the Fall. Do you really want to be recycled? Do you want your legacy to be nothing but ash and compost at the end of your era? I stepped into plasma fire for you!"

Clara was looking between them in complete bafflement; trying as she was to learn, and keep up with what was mentioned between them. She also kept fetching worried, frightened glances at the lanced leg prosthetics crisscrossed around the invader: and saw that they had merged perfectly out of his PAK, despite their ungainly size and length. There seemed to be more strength in them, than in the alien's own deteriorating body.

"You have no r-right to terminate my d-duty!" A sudden spasm took hold of his body, and a PAK leg, weakened from his shrivelling strength or due to the distraction of the fit, drew sharply back into its port. Zim had to physically wrench it back in place, its spear tip ravaging a hole in the carpet anew. Then he had to free up a trembling claw to hack and cough and splutter into it. "You should not have got in the way! You are al-always in the way! You never let me alone! NEVER! And now... now you look like..."

"Like dookie." Dib ended for him, trying to smile. But Zim wasn't smiling with him.

Dib took another step forwards. Each PAK leg was trembling, like its owner. The pink joints that enabled the limbs to pivot and turn and fold were not glowing anymore. Their glow was dying, as were the main port lights, which flickered intermittently like a candle flame caught in a capricious breeze. When Clara went to join him at his side, fingers gently taking hold of his thin, bandaged arm, Zim gave her a particularly loathsome stare. Dib noticed this sudden upwelling of hate in the Irken.

"Zim, listen to me. And listen good." Dib began. "We can't all run from our problems. We can't all give up." He awkwardly, painfully staggered down to his knees, and peeled off his trench coat to reveal the many numerous bandages littering his arms, hands and neck. "You didn't let me give in. Because we made a promise. And that promise isn't about our past failings. Or our guilt. We made that promise, because friends look out for one another, even if what they do might hurt them at the time. You took me out of my coma. I know not how. But you tapped into my dreams. You saved my life. You aren't all bad. You never were. You're a victim of your own design. Of the Irken military system you never belonged to! You've got to let go, and free yourself from it, before it kills you!"

The PAK legs drew in even tighter around him.

He was sapping his own reserves.

Zim's eyes regarded Dib's bandages with tight discernment. His hate weakened. Dark regret filled him instead.

"What happened to the little upstart invader I knew?" Dib coaxed on gently. "I know he's in there somewhere. You are a survivor, Zim. The military doesn't need you anymore. I need you. I want... I want you to be happy. You still can be."

"Dib." It looked like he was willing to fall back into his stagnating resignation. He seemed to shrink into himself, appearing more aged and more bowed than before. His eyes had a deviant luminous quality to them, and his skin was somehow even whiter. "I regard you with the highest esteem. The fact that you are alive is all the satisfaction I need. But you robbed me blind! You've doomed me!"

"But...!"

"You do not understand!" Zim continued to simper, rage and sadness contorting his grimaces, "I resent what you've done! I must be erased! Petulant FOOL! You pithy humans will sanction my remains to your labs! In death I shall betray my Empire so long as I am a corpse for human disposal!"

"ZIM!" He snapped, hot blooded.

Zim looked up at him through the bars of his prosthetics. This steel cage was mirrored back in the sorrowful Irken's black-rimmed eyes: reflecting the cage around his heart.

Dib was about to go on, about to swear a vow that he would never submit his little body to science dead or alive, when a thick, oscillating tremor burned beneath them. It was a slow transition, but, in little time, the tremor surmounted, causing the phone to jitter off the table, and pictures hanging from the walls to fall crooked. Clara dropped to her knees beside Dib, unable to trust her feet enough to stand.

Zim seemed less surprised, and it was in this solidarity that Dib realized what was going on.

"The base!" The investigator gasped.

Three miles away, an explosion of many was taking place. Deep underground, section after section collapsed under molten strain. Nuclear facilities burst outwards, showering the fine mesh of an alien invader's catacomb base in fire. Each explosion resulted in a subsequent reaction, and so a domino effect was in progress. Unable to contain the unprecedented heat, a hot, flashing geyser of the deepest ruby and scarlet burst upwards through Zim's house, gushing through each floor and room and melting all it touched from the deep disturbance of explosions still going on in the unfathomable bowels of an Irken's precinct. The geyser became a fortuitous fountain, and the Voot fell down into it, riding the hot waves of lava for a good few minutes alongside bits of disintegrating roof, a swimming sofa dipping in and out of the red lake, and Zim's old TV. They all curdled in the pit of smoking red, gradually being eaten by the flagrant bouts of magma emissions as they melted. The entire street felt the perimeters of the explosions still rocking the suburb, and dogs began to bark, car alarms went off, and lights in every house in the city was turned on.

Still the Voot Runner defiantly manage to drift, bobbing on the melting surface like a bath toy, benefiting from its austere Irken plating that once helped to void minor asteroid collisions during space flight. Then its delicate underside began to melt, its circuits and drives warping and frying and liquefying as they softened. The lava then flowed into its innermost compartments and cabin, drowning the ship in slow gurgles.

Many humans emerged, frightened, from their houses to see a great river of lava softening from its geyser into a more subdued flat flow. All that once floated had been dissolved. The Voot sunk down last of all, leaving nothing but smoky vapour trailing in the air as it finally went down: a ship sinking into red oblivion.

The houses nearby quivered, their foundations cracking, and the asphalt on the roads twisted into great leering fractures that opened into widening toothless smiles. People leapt back, screaming. Then the lava simmered more so, and began to sink back down again into a great seeping hole where nothing now stood. The house had disappeared into it, lawn gnomes, flamingos and all.

Zim sunk low, the left lid of his eye almost closed; the PAK legs still guarding him and his little patch of corner. During the lasting throw of concussive earthquakes spilling through the house in frequent waves, the Elite bent lower, the claws of his right hand seizing his chest as if he was trying his best to hold fast the deep-rooted pain within.

Dib tried to break free of the surrealistic episode he was having; knowing that Zim was giving himself an earlier appointment with death by using those heavy PAK legs.

Something in the kitchen fell and landed on the linoleum floor with a glassy smash. Some of Dib's DVDs fell out from their slots in the shelf beneath the TV, and a picture frame fell from the windowsill. Dib rose, titled a little on his feet, and went to the window. Despite the snowy speckled darkness outside, there was a glowing redness above the town way off in the distance, in the direction of Zim's house. The sombre clouds, fuzzy in their winter greyness, were warmed by this fiery luminosity.

The turbulent quakes thinned from their churning convulsions, and everything stopped rattling. Yet, even so, dogs continued to bark outside, and car alarms went on shrieking.

It was over.

Dib kept looking to the sky, watching the dashes of red, purple and yellow diminish and then die beneath the clouds until all was black and grey again.

However, the serenity that took its place seemed to have a damning effect on Zim. His eyes stared vacantly into the nether. Not really seeing them, or hearing them, like he was not really there at all. Like his mind had simply come unplugged. There were no hidden intentions. No craftily veiled threats. He was as open as a book. And just as genuine.

Then a flicker of smouldering light in his eyes died suddenly, like a blooming flower that had suddenly tasted winter cold and could do nought else but wilt.

Dib turned to the spiritually broken Elite, and approached, calling him softly by his adopted nickname with sincerity. But Zim was on another plain, another shade of existence.

Clara was yelling something. But her words had the same distant echo to them; a low drone that met Zim's one antenna at base level. His dead eyes drooped downwards at the green blood pooling there, on his lap. Bemusedly, in his disconnected state where he had become completely deaf, he made no connection with the blood, or anything else. He was only cognisant of the deeper pain of failure, and his now very stranded self.

"Gir...?" He whined at last, though he could not hear his own crying request. "Come t-to m-me, Gir..."

Clara stooped forwards, brushing his PAK legs aside. They fell away like old, dry sticks. The power within them had gone.

Her mouth moved, but Zim heard no words. Just that curious, low drone.

"Gir..." He tried again, looking idly past the humans to see if his robot was obeying him. Only the right side of his mouth moved.

Dib was there, and Zim tried to see him through limpid orbs that were now as superficial and as muted as plain stone. A sudden, rapid pain that did not exist quite so severely a few moments ago swelled up inside him as if a fire was spreading outwards from within. All three of his PAK ports blared out red light. Simultaneously, pain launched down his left arm and leg; and his vision, feathery and misty to begin with, started to descend into watery darkness.

Dib kept saying something, repeating it nonsensically. Then the human briefly turned to Clara, shouting; always shouting. But his voice came back in heavy, low beats. Zim could not hear a single syllable. Instead, doom stretched across his mindscape as finely and as swiftly as the pain below.

It was getting darker, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to be taken away by it. Then he bonelessly slouched sideways, feeling a sudden, grieving loss of control. His head was spinning on a cantered tilt, and greater agony thickened deep within the centre of his chest: filling his ribcage easier than oxygen could. He could not escape the weight: the building heaviness compressing it, no matter how he tried to twist and turn under it. He was sinking below the pain, sinking below that torturous pressure.

They were turning him gently to lie on his back, and suddenly he was aware he could see Dib's ceiling from the webbed darkness filling his vision like blotted ink. The sight in his left eye had already gone.

Finally he clasped his eyes shut, and at the last moment he tried to grope for Dib: his anchor from this blackest of worlds. And his claws found purchase, but his hold weakened, and his claws slipped away from human fingers.


	35. No More Pretending

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **A/N:**

I had a bit of a wake up call to update this. And the blame is mine.

I saw a tumblr post of an IZ fanfic recommendation post made by hailsdoesart to see that Saving Zim was on that list. My heart lifted. Someone, out there, loved it enough to put it on a recommendation list, and it made me want to cry in joy and appreciation. So thank you hailsdoesart. Thank you for enjoying it. And yes, it had a question mark next to its ongoing status. I have mistakenly left its update for too long, so long in fact, that readers were beginning to question its continuation. So yeah, that really highlighted it for me, and gave me a 'wake up' call. So I apologize to all my readers for keeping you waiting. I got scared. I hesitated updating during my holiday period early January, and then that made my doubt grow. So yeah, I suck. I admit it.

I'm also getting mad behind on reading and reviewing stories too. I need to read queenstiel's story, BirdNerd03's story, and Madness Jones's stories! It's great that I have a lot to look forward to, so don't worry, I am making my slow way to them! XD

Special thanks to all my latest reviewers, kind supporters, and amazing friends: (in no particular order, lol) **Piratemonkies64, RissyNicole, oliviikate, Weevmo, Skeleion, CawAreYouDoin, ShayL92, JustBeStill, izfan26, guestrev, BirdNerd03, Alicartin, VegaLume-San, Daizy Raine Starr, Rocky Rooster, Purest of the Hearts, No Guns Only Roses, ScriptNinja, BirdAntlers, wordsandpixels, KydenFox, queenstiel, Alice Forshadow, Invader Johnny, Aecoris, vash1589,** **Carol 'Rosy, Moops** and **Golden Chains** and **YOU, the reader.**

If I've missed you out, give me a quick nudge or a kick, and I'll add you to the list, then bash my brains in later for my stupidity! XD Cuz I'm getting old and senile, man! XD

Anyway, welcome to the heinously LONG chapters again! I am updating, before I change my mind!

* * *

 **guestrev**

Thanks! I guess that's because.. I dunno...I write everything so emotionally, because I am so emotionally invested into what I write. :) I'm super happy it connects with you too!

 **Guest**

Glad you found it! I've had many, many times where I've failed to remember an author's name, or story title, only to be fruitlessly searching for it years later, sometimes never to find it. Sad times.

 **I noticed that**

You may be on to something there!

 **Guest**

( _Tell me this wonderful story is still going on :0_ ) Yes, yes it is dear guest. It's my fault. I got too scared to push out anymore updates. Does it happen to other authors, or is it just my weak self?

 **CawAreYouDoin**

OHMYGOD You blessed, dearest reader whom I have emotionally blasted your poor heart to smithereens. Yes. I am guilty for giving you such grievous pain, and this continued nonfulfillment of this story's updates being on a bit of an unplanned hiatus, though a hiatus it still was, did not help you at all, or your sleep. Because I got to that awful point where I got scared to update, and I'm sure every author who has ever submitted a story has experienced this to some degree. And despite the anguish it caused, I am glad the characters have reached out to you - that this storytelling has reached out to you, and hooked you in without mercy. And yes, gosh it hurts me to do this to them, but all will come to mean something. It hurts me to think of all the emotional damage soldiers suffer, having to serve their Empire/country/flag/beliefs, only to remain married to that service, no matter what happens when their service is over. They just can't switch 'off' that easily, and this story is all about that, as much as it hurts. Gosh. I am going on a ramble now too! But anyway, thank you kindly for your review. You lifted my spirits, and helped me find the courage to update again.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 35 (41): No More Pretending**

"Mains exploded, I guess." One confused cop lifted up his state trooper hat and gave his balding head a good scratch as his tired eyes roamed over the burning debris a few more times as if something new would reveal itself, but the same ugly rubble stared right back, the riddle no closer to being solved. His colleague was still setting up the perimeters – perimeters which were just hazard traffic cones and police tape that was as yellow as a taxi cab. The public pressed in, but the main throng had dispersed earlier that morning after the initial calamity. Gary stood at the very forefront, camera in his left hand. His grey eyes took in the scene before him, the edges of his overcoat snagging on the snowy wind. A bit of roof had slanted downwards towards the blackened array of someone's home – a home that was steadily sinking into its own rotted hole. He remembered this house well. Who didn't? With its garishly green coloured walls, stilted windows and roof? It had looked like no other, as if it belonged to some deranged dream or a theme in a toy store where eccentricity was but the established norm. He walked by the house on rare occasions to get to the dime store round the corner and always paid it wary attention at the gnomes and front door as if the house was a secret meeting place for goblins.

"No human remains. Not much of anything in fact." The state trooper said to the other. "And this house wasn't even registered on the National State Database. The owner could be anybody."

"Hey. Didn't that, you know, green kid used to live here? With his parents?" The other cop asked, kicking a traffic cone into place. The fires had long since died, but the blackened ground still felt hot to walk upon, as if an inferno was still raging ten feet below them.

"Ahuh. Yup. Think so. I think his name was Zee or Zum or something. It's foreign I think. No idea who the parents were."

"I do. They were odd. Very odd. They used to stalk the streets at night. And eat children, so the stories say. Of course, nobody's been able to prove anything."

"Poor, poor family."

Gary took a few pictures with his camera of the site, even when the cops threw annoyed looks his way.

 _A green kid used to live here, huh?_

 _And there are no human remains to be found._

"It's no human that used to live here. It's an alien. Named Zim." Gary said to the on-looking cops. They gave pause a moment, as if they found Gary to be a very interesting sculpture. Then the one scratching his head giggled like a freshman.

"Are you that Gary guy? You know, the one who made every cop run around like a chicken around town, looking for an alien?"

The second cop's eyes widened in recognition. "Hey, yeah, it _is_ you, isn't it? You know, that little stunt cost us money. And it made the press. 'State Cops Waste time Looking for Martians,' was the headline on _News of Today._ You made us look like idiots."

Gary eyed them back, feeling the hot flush of anger creep back into his cheeks again. He had not come here to be reminded of that humiliation, and of how very close he came to capturing a creature of unknown origin. Now, instead of fame, he was only crushed by the disgrace of such a missed opportunity, and Dib's derogatory claims against his own. He was gonna kill that man, even if it was the last thing he did. He had lost his job, lost credibility. It wasn't his fault he had thrown that cup of coffee at his boss, not his fault the laughter and derision had got to him. Made him snap right there and then in the office. Clara had given him that look, that all knowing look, as if she knew far too much in that pretty fucking head of hers.

Gary stared at the policemen for several seconds longer, just enough to make them uncomfortable before he spat at the floor as they watched, and turned to walk away, his eyes as cold as iron diadems.

xxx

The amber sunlight seemed to shift through the furling white curtains, creating a dappled effect across Clara's coverlets. Dib walked towards her and the bed, with a big, dopey grin on his face. She looked tired, and was certainly pale enough to look as white as snow, but she was pleased too, shining a smile as radiant as his. In her arms she cradled a tiny little thing.

There was nothing quite like a newborn baby.

He felt so mature. So fatherly. Like he'd just taken a journey, and ended up on the other side of it, older perhaps, but wiser, with a newfound purpose.

He was a father now.

"Would you like to hold him?" Clara, dressed in hospital whites, angled the little thing towards him. The baby was swaddled in a cream blanket, with just the little head poking out. The baby's skin was so very pink.

Dib approached with his arms outwards, ready to receive the tiny parcel when there came an abrupt, almost angry click-clack of boot heels at the door. He turned; they both did, and saw Zim stride leisurely through the hospital room door with that devious patented smile glued to his face; his eyes half narrowed in what might be veiled intent, or just plain complacency. He pushed the swinging door wide open and set a cold glare on them.

"Congratulations on producing something of an offspring." Zim drawled, his voice carefully ambiguous. "Give it to me." And he rose up his claws, ready to seize the child. "...To hold." He added, as if to mollify his latent harsh commands.

"Babies aren't toys, Zim. They break more easily than you realize." Dib said, his arms heavy with the burden of his child.

"I know that." Zim replied, looking at him, as if he was testing Dib and not the other way around.

For permission, Dib glanced over at Clara, who simply smiled and nodded as if handing over their newborn into the hands of an alien invader with a deranged psychopathic mind was perfectly A-okay.

Dib looked down at the fragile baby, and was tempted to refuse honouring Zim's request.

Zim merely stood there, lingering, like some acolyte awaiting deference. When Dib did not comply, hanging onto the child like he was hanging onto the notion of his own inflicted self-doubts, the Irken suddenly dropped a deck of poker cards from his bony claws. They flittered to the floor like stray leaves, all landing on the Ace of Spades.

When Dib's eyes tracked upwards from the cards, the shyly standing alien had gone from the sterile room: departing as easily as a ghost with no trace.

It was as if he never was.

"Dib? Dib?"

Dib groaned, his brain flopping to the fore faster than the rest of him could. Foggy, warm darkness receded from the corners, and he could smell the bitter sharp stink of antiseptics and alcohol, and to top it off: the dire stench of that awful cream the nurses plastered his skin with during his hospital stay once upon a dream.

"Dib? Can you hear me?"

Just as he opened his eyes, he tried to surmise where he was, and thought with a sickening gut-twist that he really was back in the hospital, and that he was still in his ICU ward bed, and that he had never gone on to Zim's base. So he wrenched open his eyes with a shivering gasp and looked wildly around like a frightened animal. Sure enough, a nurse was bent over him with a cloying fake smile. Her face was fuzzy – his glasses had been taken – but he saw enough of her white overalls to know that she was in the medical profession, and that he was in a room he did not recognise.

He was in one of those air beds – on the carpet of some office. He had been well covered in white coverlets, and when he went to raise himself up on skinny arms, his skin burned in rebellion, but he pushed himself to sit upright anyway. That tangy cream smell for burns stayed in his nose like foul gas, and he could not escape it.

"Who...? Where am I?" His voice was rusty, and the words squeaked out of him. After a few more attempts to communicate, he managed to talk a little more like his old self again. "Am I in the hospital? Where are my glasses! Give them back to me!"

"Whoa now, slow down young man! You've been out cold for ages!" Her voice was smooth, and accented with a slight Nebraskan inflection. She moved off to one side to a desk, a fuzzy desk, and retrieved what could only be his glasses. When she passed the glasses to him, he snatched them up and shoved them back on.

"You're in your father's lab, don't you remember?"

"No, I don't! Who are you? Where is everyone?"

"I'm Joy. Nurse Joy. Your father hired me to treat you. He's worried sick."

Dib blinked, confused and chagrined, even though he had no idea what he was angry about. He could remember little, as if, in passing out, he had lost a great deal of long-standing memory. All that knocked around in the back of his head were the fragments of that oddity of a dream he had. "My dad... hired you? And I'm not in the hospital?" Had he not woken up back in the past? Had Zim's base really blown to kingdom come? "Zim? C-Clara? Where are they?"

Almost patronizingly, she placed a hand on his shoulder and went to push him back down again as if he was eight years old and needn't be worried about life beyond this room. Not yet. "Shhh, Dib! You should be resting! You outright collapsed you know. Clara set this little airbed up for you, and I treated your burns. The professor said that I should stay in the office with you, and not to go anywhere else."

Bullshit! He didn't collapse! If he did, then why didn't he remember falling? Losing consciousness? Surely he should have some kind of recollection?

Dib rolled off his blankets, surprised to see his bandaged legs. He was just wearing his boxers. "You... you stripped me!"

"How else was I to get at your burns?" She huffed, slowly starting to lose her store of patience. "You lay down, young man or..."

"Was there an earthquake in the city at all today... or tonight? What time is it?"

"It's nearly eight in the morning. And yes, now that you mention it, there was big commotion yesterday. In Maple Street I _think_ it was. Some say there was a factory explosion, but I think it was just a fire in some residential house. Caused quite a lot of fuss too."

"And Zim?"

"I don't know of this 'Zim' you keep mentioning. There was your father and this young girl of yours. Now you should be resting!"

Dib sagged where he sat, heavy head rolling forwards as he lost all motivation. "I collapsed?" He asked. He kept whirling back to this point, because it did not correlate with anything.

"Yes. In a dead faint. Honestly. Escaping from the hospital like that. No wonder you aren't well. Your poor, poor father."

He remembered so little. He had been weak at the knees; and this debility had spread upwards until he had to keep grabbing a wall here and a wall there to keep himself vertical. How else had he been able to keep himself upright with these deplorable surprises he had kept receiving?

The professor had come banging on that door like a fireman who had just arrived at a burning house and was desperate to get in. Dib had thought he'd break the door down, so Clara had dashed down the hallway to open it while they heard him ranting; "Open up in there, son! I will not have any of this fuss! You are to go straight back to the hospital like a sensible young man!"

Clara had opened the door for him, and in he stormed like that fireman still, ready to haul his son over his shoulder if he so needed to, and might have done too, if there hadn't been an alien in their personal family feud.

Yes, that's right. That was how it had gone.

He had felt sick and faint even then, wondering what the hell was going on. No doubt his father had been wondering the very same thing. The meeting with Zim should have gone a whole lot better, as there had once been a plan, and not anything like how it actually happened. The scheme to take Zim to his lab willingly, secure in his disguise, and in the fickle hope that they could dupe the scientist, was over.

When the professor was still reprimanding his son for 'escaping the good old hospital' and 'embarrassing his father' once again ("another humiliation for which I must tolerate") he had added, he paused suddenly from his tirade (a tirade he must surely have rehearsed in his mind on which to thoroughly reprimand his boy with on the car drive there), his goggled eyes stared down at the limp green creature in his son's lap for perhaps as long as four seconds. Then his rehearsed lines were dropped, and he knelt down to feel Zim's forehead as if feeling an otherworldly alien's temperature was nothing out of the ordinary.

"This does _not_ correspond to my calculations! What has happened?" His voice was suddenly a lot sharper than before. Creases jaggedly appeared on his forehead.

Dib just sat there, staring, gawp-mouthed at his father. There was no time for shocking revelations and key explanations, this much he knew, but he could not help but sit there, mind packed with shock after shock. Luckily Clara wasn't as brain dead as he, and she eased his arms off Zim so that she could take him.

"To my car, at once!" The professor was saying, to him, or Clara. Who could tell? Then his father began to dial 911 using his wireless communicator on his arm for an ambulance - presumably for his rebellious son. Dib rose on weak legs, and slapped a bloody gauzed hand on the Bluetooth device to stop the call.

"No!" He had exhaled numbly. He had been sitting on too many emotions. The worst of them were piling up. He wasn't sure if he was more surprised, angry, or hateful for how nonchalant his father inexplicably was with Zim. Dib had always prided himself on being a bit of a smart boy, being the renowned son of the professor and all, but even he had not picked up on his father's knowledge of Zim at all.

And he wanted to know. Right. Now.

"But you need medical assistance, and some restraints. I can't have you running around, as ill-struck as a headless chicken now, can I? Think of your poor, suffering father!" The professor said demurely as if this was still very much the largest issue at stake.

"What's going on? Zim's an alien, and somehow, you don't seem shocked at all? Do you? DO YOU?"

"Son, this isn't the time, or the place. Your little green friend is losing the fight. I suggest you hurry up and come with me, or get sent to the hospital! Your choice!"

The rage and indignation he felt suddenly burned hotter than the pain of his plasma injuries. He had never tasted a betrayal so foul before, and he stood rooted to the spot on the carpet, shaking with exhaustion and anger.

 _Now is not the time! Now is not the time!_ Some part of his brain that hadn't yet been eaten by the fire of his wrath pleaded with any sanity he still might possess. _Now. Is. Not. The. Time!_

He wanted to punch something. Really, really hard. Plasma injuries be damned.

When Dib sulkily got into his dad's car, he thought the professor would drive him straight to a mental institution and Zim straight to a giant, multi-complex, high security laboratory for prompt dissection while his organs were still fresh. Dib prepared himself for an all-out battle, should his estimation of his father prove correct. But the car did not take Route 49 to the renowned Rosemary Institution that he had been formally acquainted with when he was a boy, and neither did his father take the highway to the huge laboratory complex Geneva. He instead drove to his own home laboratory – the very same one he worked at. And again Dib felt sure the professor would contact every scientist on his preferred list of experts to come and oversee Zim's publicized (or even an undisclosed) evisceration. But again this did not transpire, and Dib felt heavy with shock and surmounting fatigue at all these uncharted bombshells. Zim meanwhile was in Clara's arms, still fully clothed in that gaudy armour with that weird stamp of office on his forehead. His PAK legs, all four unfurled like kinked, metal poles, hung from his life-support like arching, broken rods. They dipped down into the footwell, and strummed musically together whenever Clara shifted Zim's position, or when the car bumped over something in the road. Dib couldn't quite understand why they weren't automatically slipping back in. Did that mean that Zim had to mentally retract them? Like cats did with their claws? Or was it because the PAK's gears were shot to hell, and had lost the capability to draw them back in?

He didn't know. And failing to understand only worsened his deepening distress. He should have learnt more about his PAK! He had had the time, surely he had had the time?

Then Clara had stooped towards him, over Zim, and proclaimed in horror: "Dib, oh Dib he's not breathing!"

"Dib? Young man? You're staring off into space again. Here. Have some water."

He was pushed out of the reverie and suddenly presented with a little white plastic cup. Full of cool water. Nurse Joy was watching him expectantly. He reached towards it and gulped down the cool liquid far faster than he should have done. It was a gladdened respite against the thorny dryness in his throat, and when he drank it all, the nurse traded the empty plastic cup for a new one heavy with more ice cold water.

Each slight movement made the bed beneath him wobble, but the airbed was comfortable and cool beneath him, and it felt softer against his injuries.

"I've slathered your burns in Epitom cream and re-bandaged them." He already knew that. He recognized the stink of it. "Your father advises you to rest another day before you go getting into trouble again."

Dib looked at her this time, seeing the blonde curls sticking out from under her white nurse cap. She was quite chubby, with a delightful smile and rosy cheeks. He had never seen her before, and assumed his father had hired her privately at personal expense so that his son would get good medical care without being sent to hospital. The office he was in he now recognised after his brain had made sense of the situation. This was one of the many study rooms his father inhibited in the lab complex. Some exotic jungle plant grew from a vase in one corner of the room, and opposite him, against the wall, was a multitude of computers, keyboards and stereo speakers. Next to that was a mini table covered in machinery parts. Machinery parts that looked very familiar.

Still in his boxers, he managed to coerce his body to move, and so left the blankets with stiff cumbersome movements of his sleepy limbs. He stood – wavered – and shambled to the computers. Nurse Joy was unimpressed. She had been in the middle of fixing up a little cold meal of ham, a boiled egg and some salad for him out of the professor's mini fridge when she saw him moving away towards the consoles.

"Young man! You shouldn't be moving around in your condition! Get back into that bed right now!"

Despite the hot fogginess still lathering his head and thoughts, he approached the desk and discerned the jigsaw-like pieces of plastic and metal. They were all blank in colour as if they had been made from a mould. If metal had been attached, it had been hammered into a previous plastic sculpt. Sometimes there were long lengths of cable, and a few hairline wires. Beneath them were loose pages of schematics. He picked up one of these sculpts and looked at the printed diagrams. He at once recognised the shapes – and the oval end product that was covered in scrawled notes and labels. They were all individual pieces of Zim's PAK – a carbon-based copy, made out of cheap materials.

His father had been working on it, all this time.

Which meant that he had known Zim was an alien.

All this time.

Dib might have been able to cope with his father's betrayal in small doses, but not all at once. And he was stuck with the 'all-at-once' treatment. There was no medicine to ease that kind of pain.

And what of his alien?

His enemy? His life? His motivation? He was so hard to let go; even pushing Clara to one side just to keep up with Zim. Both of them had grown emotionally to get as far as they had. He had always been confident that Zim would never mature, never change. Never age. But he had.

Funny, how a wire trap could achieve so much emotional investment, turning a deplorable enemy into a brotherly comrade.

His dad was not present, at least, not here. He could be half way across town by now, hauling Zim's carcass to Geneva for all he knew.

Then other things acuminated in his mind in tattered remnants he did not fancy to remember.

Zim had destroyed his own base. What did the place look like now, if he were to walk past it? Would he still see some burnt stretches of ground that used to be grass? Would there be half a melted gnome or two? Or would nothing be there but a large, gaping hole that once foretold of an alien's life that still boiled from within?

Dib was slowly having his sometimes fond sometimes accursed childhood nostalgia leak away from him.

There was no more Gir either.

The only technology still in existence of alien origin was now Tak's ship – the broken old relic of a time long gone, safely tucked away in his garage under a grey, dusty tarp. Following the thunderclap of events, that old heap of junk was now the pinnacle of Irken technology.

And all this started with just one sudden EMP blip across Lincoln that had only lasted some three minutes.

This revelation, however small, jabbed into Dib like a deep-seated poison, and this renewed anger rallied his limbs into a united coordination so that he could better stand by the consoles. "Where are my clothes?" He asked the nurse, who had come over to look at him with judgemental eyes. Why could he remember nothing else? What was his mind trying to protect him from? Had Clara seem him collapse too?

"I knew I should have sedated you." Begrudged Joy. "You have a spare change of clothing. In that drawer over there. Top left." And she pointed unhelpfully at a mahogany chest of drawers near the door. "You really aren't well enough to be 'wandering around' like you are!"

Dib proceeded to the chest of drawers and opened out the top left one. Within was newly laundered clothing that smelt of fresh cotton. He removed the pile from the drawer and set it on his airbed, but when he searched through the clothing, his fond necklace was not there.

He slipped on a fresh blue shirt with slow precision, testing his limits, and seeing what he could and couldn't get away with. "How long was I out for? And why am I here, in my dad's office?"

"It was your father's choice. He wanted somewhere warm and quiet for you, and your girlfriend agreed. I have been paid to look after you and that's just what I am going to do! Now you sit on that chair over there after you've changed, and I'll bring you some breakfast! It's fresh and very tasty!"

Dib pulled on his pants, but abstained from doing up his belt as this only added to the pressure on the soreness around his slim waist. When he'd managed to slip on his jacket, brushing at his neck to feel for his missing necklace, he turned for the door and tested the handle. Only he was met with resistance. The door was locked.

"Open the door." He said, trying to convey his urgency without getting all hot and bothered about it.

"Oh no! You're staying right here where I can keep an eye on you!" Was her tidy response.

"But I gotta go! You can't keep me here! This is illegal!" He could feel his irritation developing into fully fledged anger. At any moment he'd start whacking himself at the door to get it open if that was what it took to get her to understand his dogged insistence, and if that failed, he'd try escaping out the small window above the computers while shouting a long monologue of curses at her.

Nurse Joy saw the bright necessity in his eyes, and the baleful intentions half hidden there. With a pessimistic sigh, she got out the keys from the front pocket of her white uniform and came over, shoving the key in the lock and turning it. Before she had even drawn the keys back out again, Dib had shunted the door open with a slap of his hand and was out.

"Dad? Dad?" He called, wondering what he'd find, if anything, should he stumble across the professor. He hastily travelled down a beautiful oak walled hallway that acted as an atrium to different sections of the lab, "Where are you?" He walked as best as he could, rubbing a sore hand against his sore stomach. He felt less aggravated by the constant tenderness, and his skin didn't feel so parched and dry, like the cracked ground of the desert. Now he could move a little better, and think a little clearer. But it still did not answer the question of what he looked like beneath, and if he still looked at all like the Dib Membrane he had once been so familiar with.

He continued to walk down his father's spruce, neat hallway on floorboards of dark and rich sorrel. Along the walls were many framed and enlarged photos of his father receiving awards over the years: Noble Prizes. A handshake by President Man. Another of the professor standing benevolently behind a group of underprivileged children for charity. Prof. Membrane cutting a ribbon when some medicine factory had been declared 'open.' The pictures went on. And not a single picture of his family joined the montage of his successes, as if his family had only been a wayward accident, and not something to celebrate at all.

Dib noticed this, each time he came here, whether he was eleven years old, or thirty three.

A door was slightly ajar at the other end of the hallway, emitting golden light from his dad's main private lab where he conducted his experiments away from his living quarters.

"Calm yourself my dear boy." Came a reciprocating voice from the doorway, "I knew you'd be soon up and about. Nothing stops you, it seems. No wonder your little friend thought so much of your... tenacity."

"Dad?" He swung the door open, grimacing at the slew of fire it caused down that arm. He was _still_ not used to the idea, let alone the reality, of being a walking plasma-burn victim, and he feared he would never learn.

His father looked down at him warmly, though it was impossible to tell if he was smiling behind that white collar of his. However, his voice sounded cheerful enough. "Feeling better, I trust?" He had been bending over a Petri dish and looking at its contents through a microscope. The liquid in the dish was very dark green, like thick, gooey algae. Almost black. The rest of the little room was quite messy. Glass beakers sat like stranded survivors here and there; some of which had been left to lie on their sides, and the radioactive bin was overflowing with dirty gauze and surgical gloves. All stained in this same purulent green.

"What the hell happened? Did you hire a nurse?"

"Yes I did, to counteract your wayward ways." He said, looking at his son dubiously. "Nurse Joy gave you a shot of some of that miraculous morphine! To ease your pain! Your folly has yet again taken money from my own pocket, but now I realize why you left the hospital in such a tumultuous rush!"

"Where is Zim? My alien! What have you done with him?"

"Ah yes, that. You may see him. But you must promise me two things."

Dib was already heading for the doorway. "Zim? Zim where are you? I'm here! Clara? Are you there? Answer me!"

The professor took his boy's shoulder and took him into his arms. "Quiet now, my dear boy. Quiet."

Dib tried to throw him off. "He's dead, isn't he? That's why you knocked me out!"

"Your little green friend is not dead, my son. You fainted while I was resuscitating him with the defibrillators. Do you not remember?"

He tried to tear himself from his father's embrace, nearly wriggling free, only for those arms to harness new strength and keep him pinned. Then his strength slipped out of him as fast as blood out a wound, and he stopped struggling. His father, studying him intently, let him go. Dib's eyes went glassy as he looked inwards, and started to remember it. All of it. He went to run, as if he had one final lap to go before he won the race, but his father's hand closed over his, pulling him back gently.

"I want you to promise me to be calm. And secondly, you must do everything I say."

"You knew! You knew he was an alien!"

"I'll explain everything, that I sincerely promise you, my boy. Now, would you like to see him?"

xxx

This section of his dad's lab was filled with strange technologies, bizarre objects and glowing potions of many complex colours. It was like trying to find your way through a wizard's messy alchemy room. His father liked to tackle many things at once, often neglecting to clean up after himself after one experiment or task was done with. His main complex was neat and tidy to a Spartan degree, but living alone, with his own wild thoughts and ideas had made his living space very chaotic.

However, Dib was pleased to find that the next room adjacent to this one wasn't cluttered at all. It was his father's own private medical ward, great for general rest, and to treat serious burns, wounds or chemical poisons should any accidents occur. And such immeasurable relief stole through Dib that he fell backwards, only for his observant father to catch him before he hit the floor.

Zim lay on his side in his father's clean bed; alive and breathing, his true alien nature exposed. The guardians Zim had by his bed was the big old ECG machine that was busy pinging back audible heartbeats, and there was a plethoric assortment of respirator tanks in a line, cusped in looping tubes (many of these tall, steel cylindrical tanks were labelled as 'highly flammable' – with bold, black stencilled lettering that read _8_ _ **O '**_ _15.9994u.'_ Two of these cylinders were set aside, marked in red stickers reading 'empty' while three fresh ones were stacked and ready for use.

Zim meanwhile was entrenched with apathetic wires and tubes. Many of these wires marched in lines up the blankets and cot, only to disappear beneath the coverlets. Some however remained exposed, such as the ones connected to the alien's breathing mask, and a few branching out over his tiny bandaged chest that, even now, was dotted in dark olive stains. Zim himself had his eyes sealed closed, and was not moving. The only part that actively stirred was his ribcage as it heaved weakly up and down from lungs that were being nurtured on high concentrated levels of oxygen. In pattern to his breathing, a respirator pump was actively inflating and deflating, forcing air into his chest.

"He is not breathing for himself." The professor said at Dib's back, seeing where his eyes were taking him. "I fitted his lungs with a breathing tube that goes down his throat, so he cannot communicate, even if he were awake. He has been lightly sedated. This way I can keep him adequately oxygenated. It's the only way."

Dib pushed away from his father's supportive hold, his body subsiding onto the edge of the bed by Zim's side. Zim was completely still, only his chest doing any movement. The breaths emerging through the hollow tube sounded squeaky. The blips on the little monitor of the ECG brooding above the frail little body were a racing assortment of hilly bumps which sometimes accentuated into sharp spikes before dropping all the way back to those weak little humps again. And, because the bed was so expansive and large, meant for a human and not a runt of an Irken, there was plenty of room for his PAK legs. Like uprooted stalks with no business being on the outside of their retreat, they had been pushed to lie downwards: their length gangling all the way down to the other end of the bed. Due to this, the ports of the PAK remained open for their bulbous end-joints that once carried the elderly invader around.

"Zim? Zim, wake up!" He went to nudge the little Elite's limp shoulders, his hands clenching onto what felt like bone when his father gently, patiently intervened, and unhinged his son's fingers from the alien's arm. He was without his armour. Even his stamp had disappeared. Had someone washed it off? Was this still the same old Zim? He felt deceived, as if, during his lapse in consciousness, the world had been turned upside down and he was a few chapters behind.

"Hush now! You mustn't disturb him!"

"Get off me!" He cried, feeling the tightness pulling at his burns.

"No, no! Not until you calm yourself!"

"What have you done to him? Where are his clothes? Why isn't he waking? Why isn't he breathing for himself?"

"It's all right, son. Just take a deep breath, and allow me to explain."

Sadness rushed in, and all he could do was stare forlornly at the tiny alien he had known for so long. And he took that deep breath, even if it nearly made him choke with tears. It was now a failing struggle to speak past the lump tightening his throat.

"That's better." His father told him kindly. "Now, if I let go, will you behave yourself?"

"I'm not eleven anymore!" His father let him go, and he once again took his position by the bed, reassessing all the telemetry leads and tubes appended to his alien's sickly body. Ever so gently he lifted a warm corner of blanket to see if Zim still had all his parts attached, to see if any one limb had been carted off 'for science.' Thankfully, his little creature was intact. His tiny clawed feet were covered in white woolly socks, and his main torso was wrapped in a white, minky soft gown that was thin enough to see all the natural contours that Zim's body made. No part of him was missing. And the gown parted at the middle to reveal secure bandaging, the only things stretching out from it being wires and tubes. The wires were attached to Zim's sternum under the firm layers of gauze to record each heart movement, but the bandages seemed to have harbour irregular blots of greenish fluid. He noticed too with some disarmament that Zim's hand claws were wrapped to the nines in a pair of white mittens, and that these mittens appeared strapped to the Irken's tiny wrists with layers of gauze, as if to keep them firmly tied on no matter what.

Dib eased the blanket back over his alien again. The professor had gone to bring up a chair. Dib wondered why, and then felt a sudden wave of dizziness try to tip him over. Gratefully, he sunk into the chair his father gave him.

The professor stood quietly, hands behind his back. He was awaiting whatever it was his son would ask of him first. But Dib forewent asking about Zim's condition, only to ask an immediate one.

"Why are you not surprised?" He asked his father.

"Surprised? Surprised at what, my boy?" He asked as if he truly didn't know or possibly see the frankness of the question, or come to acknowledge the pain in Dib's eyes.

"Do I have to spell it out for you? Are you really so naive?" Dib asked. Then he buttoned down, knowing he really shouldn't be having a heated argument next to a very sick Zim. The pulses projected from the ECG remained monotonous in their weak hilly lines, and Zim's capricious breathing did not vary. Dib dropped his voice down low, while still retaining an edge to it. "How long have you known?"

"Known what? That your foreign friend here is more than he seems?"

"Yes. That!"

"I'm not sure. About... twenty years or so?"

The answer given was too simple for Dib to comprehend. He stared owlishly up at his father, his mouth open slightly in his incredulity. "You... you betrayed me!" He was finally able to blurt out in a low hiss. "You said there were no aliens! You made everyone think I was nuts! You... you spoiled my whole childhood! Because you knew! You knew he was an alien the whole time, and you never supported me, or helped! You lied to me!"

"Correction. I did not know he was an alien, not at first."

Dib looked to a sleeping Zim, then to his father again. He was unable to sit any longer, despite his wooziness, and left the chair to pace upon the floor to at least allay some of the hot decisive anger out of his chest before he drowned in it.

"Oh yeah, sure sure!" Dib was saying, his eyes flicking to one object in the room to the other without really seeing any of it. "And you honestly expect me to believe that you: a genius, would let an alien pass you by? To let slip the ultimate discovery for all of mankind?"

"Son...?"

"But... but you... you..." He stopped, paused, and began to pace in a different direction until he came to a wall: a dead-end. He looked at the table top filled with implements and medicines, and was sorely tempted to fling his arm across it all. The whole fact that aliens existed only solidified his position in the field of the supernatural, not the other way round! "You'd pass up a chance of capturing an alien, just to keep your son in line? Did you want me to become a scientist _that_ badly? Is that it?"

The rhythmic beeping sounds of Zim's nursed heart rate filled the space between them.

When his father seemed to dawdle, Dib added, "We were trying to kill each other, dad. I could have died. Did you ever think about that? He was a threat to Earth! You'd give Zim that much leeway? Huh?" He turned to lay cold, flashing eyes of chagrined amber at his father, a man he had once trusted all his life.

"I was always looking out for your best interests in mind." The professor finally articulated in that old, wise voice of his. Even in the face of such guilt, he spoke with confidence. "When you lost your mother, I thought you'd never be happy again. Then one day, after school, you came home with a glow in your eyes, the first spark of life I had seen in your face since her passing. That was when your little green alien appeared, was it not?"

Dib thought that his answer was not relevant at all. But he let his father continue, holding back the anger and hurt as best he could. It was also the first time he had mentioned his mother in almost two full decades. They didn't speak of her, as if she had never even happened.

"This event breathed life into you. You got healthier. Your grades went up. You stopped having nightmares. You know how many times I sat with you every night, until you stopped crying?"

Dib looked away, clenching his jaws, eyes wide in resentment. This had nothing to do with anything! Why was his father dredging up bad memories from the past? "This had nothing to do with _anything_ about Zim!" He said as quietly as he could. Zim, several feet away, tucked up in bed, did not stir, and his languishing heart rate remained in the low 62 – 67 zone.

The professor sighed. "Son, there was a most terrible incident, when you were just a small child. You had gone missing, for several insane days in fact. I was worried sick, and searched for you everywhere! I found you eventually, using my dependable bio-scanner. It picked up your unique readouts, only I kept getting some very unusual results! It let me to a shed in somebody's back garden, surrounded it was! By dogs of low nefarious breed! And there you were. Only, you were not you."

Dib frowned. Was his guilt-ridden father making this story up, or was it genuine. "I'm sorry. What?" For he did not recall such an event. If it was of some important, he knew he would have remembered it.

"You were a sausage, my son! A big, fat sausage of baloney! And so too was your little green friend! Both of you, sitting on a couch in death! I had no idea what trouble you had got into it, but I assumed from then on that you were friends, and had both ended up stuck together in a kind of sausage limbo! So, I rescued you both, and while you were recovering as I reverse-engineered the baloney DNA, I discovered that your friend's biology was so very different. It was then that I discovered he was an alien."

The penny dropped.

He could imagine Zim coming out of his baloney-near-death faster than Dib due to his quick metabolism, and could picture him sitting in one of the professor's chairs, all weak and disorientated as his body slowly recuperated from its ugly metamorphosis. He would have been too feeble to do much other than see his present surroundings, and learn of the man who had fixed his own mistake. He might have sat there, and listened to the professor for some time, drinking a hot drink perhaps to fuel some energy and warmth into his convalescing body, as there wasn't much else Zim could do until he could utilize his PAK and legs again. He might have feared inevitable imprisonment, or worse, but the professor must have seen the two as friends, and so, had let Zim on his way again. Perhaps his father, after restoring his health to nominal levels, and had offered a sort of alliance.

Therefore, the professor had known about Zim all along.

It explained why, when Tak had arrived, that he had caught Zim sitting in his own kitchen at the family table, sharing coffee or tea or whatever it had been with his father. And they had just been casually chatting, like a couple of old friends. And Dib had been none the wiser.

Hence the cryptic password, which really, hadn't been so cryptic after all.

"Baloney." He whispered, thunderstruck with bewilderment.

 _I always wondered how we'd survived that baloney thing. And after all these years I thought it was just some silly nightmare._

"You'd... you'd squander the chance to nationalize alien life... for me? Because... because you thought we were... we were friends?"

"I am a scientist and I believe in the study of all living things, but some things are too precious to break and take apart. Time is much too short. And we are wise creatures, my son. We are not barbarians. And because of him, you've led a full life, chasing your dreams. And look how far you've come! I'm proud of you, my son!"

"But... but!" He wasn't about to let this go. "Zim's an invader! He... he nearly destroyed Earth! Doesn't that worry you at all?"

"Oh we're all heading for mass extinction anyway. Be it nuclear war, mass starvation, overpopulation or a meteor strike. I hardly think one little alien will change all that! Besides, after I had a quick study of his biology during his recuperation from your united sausage indeterminate state, I found that his age was overdue for his biological shell and that there were troubling amounts of corrosion in his cyborgenetic parts. I asked your little friend if he would like me to help him in this regard, but he refused."

"Why did you never tell me?" Dib asked sadly.

"Why? Should I have needed to? You seemed perfectly content, chasing after Zim and fulfilling yourself with purpose. Why should I threaten that?"

Dib sagged some more. "And Clara? Where is she?"

"Asleep in the room next door. She refused to leave Zim's side, fearing that his heart would stop again. It took me an age to reassure her. She's too much like you, my boy."

"His heart...stopped?"

"Yes. Do you not remember? He had a heart attack at your home. Since then he's gone into cardiogenic shock. I told you to bring him to me as we had arranged. Now I fear it is too late."

Because he felt so inept, so old and so bewildered, all he could say above the shock was: "W-What happens now?"

"That, my son, is up to you."


	36. This Far

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

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 **A/N:**

Before I get into it, I gotta put **AmIz06** on a pedestal here. Please check out her art on Deviant Art when you can. Her work is stylistic and incredible! I was roaming DA awhile back, and saw, by chance, Saving Zim fanart by her! She's drawn our favourite space bug in that glorious funeral armour, with the Elite symbol on his head and everything! I STILL cannot get over it, and I looked like an excited goof, holding my mouth in awe and everything the entire time. A lot of detail and time and effort went into it and my heart just soared into SPACE! AHHH WHAT WOULD I DO WITHOUT YOU GUYS AND GALS?! So please, please check it out! I cannot praise her enough!

An apology to **RissyNicole.** Our ideas for his unsprung PAK legs have a similar appeal, and since I submitted mine later, I do apologize for any similarities from her beloved story; **A Parade of Indignities.** The coincidence is quite amusing I have to say, both of us admirers of his PAK and its many uses! XD

* * *

 **Guest from 'Fudgekin Oneshot'**

OMG! I LOVE YOU! Thanks so much for enjoying and loving! Maybe one day I will add to the oneshot, and just...I dunno, include extra scenes that never made it into the main story.

 **guestrev**

I have to say I am in such grand awe of readers reactions, and how much they have enjoyed Prof. Membrane's arrival into the scene, and his portrayal!

 **Guest**

So glad you accepted the headcanon! YES! The professor has always kept an eye on his son, even though it has never quite seemed that way. It was a lot to take in last chapter, and it brings me tides of joy to realize how well everyone has been enjoying the ride thus far! I hope you enjoy the rest!

 **Oof**

Trust me, it HURTS to write this. Like, I'm not new to angst, in fact, I'm pretty old to it, but this chapter hurt, and the last chapter hurt. Zim's looked hell in the face, and felt the burn. Can he come back from it?

 **Guest**

Oh dearest guest thank you for thinking of SZ as one of your favourites! SUCCESS! I only hope that the ending will deliver the same awe and memorable events as the rest has done so proceeding it! I wish I had been updating this sooner, I really do. But I'm back after my hiatus and yeah, this story's gonna end. One way or another! Thank you for joining me, and reading this story!

 **Guest**

OMG really? REALLY?! Oh you precious reader! You started reading this at 1am, and skipped all your classes for this story? OMG WHERE ARE YOU SO I CAN BEAR-HUG YOU!? I hope you recovered from your reading binge with some good old sleep! We need to sit down and talk about it, ahaha! (oh my GOD I am nerding out!) Okay, first of all, my heart reaches out to you; this story touched you in the way I intended, stories can be so powerful, and they only work if they tickle/move us on an emotional level that brings us closer to the characters, as if we were there. With them. Thank you SO MUCH for reaching out to me, and letting me know how much you've loved this story!

 **Moops**

MOOPS! MOOPS! I've missed ya! Don't worry, I think we've all had some bumps on the road this year. I hope all is well. It's great to hear from you, ALWAYS!

 **SaintHeartwing**

Just a quickie reminder for you: the opinions of the characters in this story do not reflect my own. :)

* * *

 **CHAPTER 36 (42): This Far**

 _'Only you can make this change in me.'_

 _Only You - The Platters_

Dib had this ugly, congested ball of bitterness inside him that would not quit and his spiralling mood was as black as it could get. He had angrily disputed with his father about the EMP blackout that he had caused all that time ago;

" _This all started because of you!"_

" _How do you mean?"_

" _That futuristic developmental thing you were making? For sustainable energy? You remember! Of course you do! It created that electro-magnetic-pulse all over the city!"_

" _Well, yes... there were... minor implications..."_ His father still seemed edgy about it, even long after it had happened. The professor never failed too often, but when he did, he seemed to take each failure personally.

" _Yeah well, those 'minor' implications you're so quick to sweep under your boot turned Zim's little robot into a murdering machine! Gir did this to me! See these burns? That's because of YOU! Thanks to your 'minor' implications! I'm going for a walk!"_

" _Son! Son! Wait just a moment!"_

The sky was a slight lilac and the sun was peeping over the sleepy city with a lazy inclination. It was cloudy day, promising winds and rain from the east. The rains might persuade the snow to melt, but really, all it would do was turn it into wet, sludgy mess.

Dib stood out in the weak sunlight, smoking a cigarette that wouldn't last, and pondering over his misery of a life.

He mostly thought about the dream he had had. It had stayed with him, like a stain that could not be washed out.

Suppose Zim – against the impossibilities – survived? The dream was just a load of nonsense he was sure – but it inspired him to think of having a family – a child of his own with Clara. And Zim being present. But Zim was not going to get there by himself.

Dib had to laugh. It came out sounding dark and half mad. _An Irken in the family? Really Dib? Are you that far gone upstairs? I'm sure Zim eats kids._ And he laughed again. Laughed until it hurt.

Clara came out from one of the swinging lab doors, as if she had especially gone out looking for him. Her smile was a shadowed one, golden eyes rimmed in fatigue. She probably hadn't slept all that much either - and what sleep she did attain was a restless variety chained in anxiety. It made him angry with her for some reason. Angry because she had sided with his dad and put him up in a room with Nurse Joy. Angry because she cared about an alien she had no business with. Angry, because that dream hadn't been real.

"How are you feeling?" She asked, sounding shy and hesitant. She noted the chaos in his eyes.

He stamped on his cigarette and lit up another; knowing that if Zim were here, he would chastise him for doing so, especially with him smoking around Clara. But shit, he deserved to chain-smoke.

She stepped out into the cool, weak sunshine, hugging her arms about herself, wearing one of those frumpy cardigans she always liked to wear. She did not seem to notice the old green marks staining the left arm sleeve. "I'm making him some new clothes. And maybe a soft doll of his robot. Gir." Clara said nervously, her eyes looking more at the ground than at her tense fiancé. "I like to knit. It calms me."

"What's the point?" His words were so bitter, so brutal, that they seemed to physically slash at her.

Her eyes took on a sharper tone, and they watered with hurt. There was uncomfortable moment between them, and neither heard the beeping of traffic in the background. "The truth is painful." She said at length, hands still hugging her sides as if to warm the deeper chill from within. "But your father only did those things because he loves you. No one loved me. Be grateful for what you have." And she turned and went back into the wing of the lab, the door swinging after her. He groaned.

 _Yeah to go, Dib you old fool._

He was bemused by her dedication. Why she was so devoted and affectionate to an Irken she hardly knew? Maybe it was something to do with her lost parentage, having been raised in an orphanage where anything remotely genuine had ever existed. Or because he was, in her eyes, just another one of God's creatures worth protecting? An orphan that he was, separated from his own race like a pariah. Alone in a world that had no place for him. Was that what she saw? Was that why?

He thought of going after her. Thought of maybe staying outside for a bit longer, enjoying the solitude. It gave him time to think. And reflect upon the dream of earlier: of holding his baby, and refusing Zim's request to hold it. Thought of how he had turned his back on his father, refusing to help with the blood analysis. He just wanted to escape it all. To dive into someone's shoes, and live their life.

Again the cigarette went out too quickly.

He hated seeing Zim with that disturbing tracheal tube down his throat; hated how the stupid Irken had wedged himself into the corner of the lounge, having been unable to overcome his inner torments. He wished he had never severed the cord cementing the PAK to the autodoc. Wished he had been brave enough to allow Zim that mercy.

The incident when Zim had cornered himself in the lounge and what came after kept playing in Dib's head on repeat; forcing him to see those lasting moments as he relived them reluctantly - as if someone was callously hitting the rewind button, forcing him to face it over and over. Dib had committed every ounce of willpower to force these images and memories asunder, but his mental discipline was still no match for such fresh wounds, and he could not suppress it for very long.

He heard the low squeaking of the door being opened. "Son?"

Dib slowly turned, his dark amber eyes alighting on his father. The scientist looked so distraught and worried, as if he half expected to see his son placing a noose around his neck. "Yes?" Dib snapped.

"Y-You need to see this! It's better if there are two brilliant minds working on the problem at hand rather than one!" He was probably talking about that damned blood sample again.

He felt his inner walls tremble. Reality again. He didn't want to face it.

Between nightmares of the reality and of the daydreams, Dib wanted to keep himself inside his own protected solitary bubble. He'd rather be swept away by the current of loss, than walk against it.

"Dad. Why are his claws wrapped up? Are you worried he might... hurt someone? In _his_ condition?" It was laughable. Really laughable.

"I can show you..." He said hesitantly, which was unusual, for his father normally wasn't so...undecided.

And, it was such an odd answer that for a minute Dib thought one of them was surely going insane.

"What do you mean, 'show me?' Are you trying to save the bed from damage or something?" He joked. When his father only continued to look at him, a furrow of a frown building between the ridges of his eye goggles, Dib began to suspect the disturbing nature of the mittens. _No. No. Zim wouldn't do that. No way._

"Come inside this once. It's mighty chilly out here and you'll catch a cold." His father was just trying to coax him back in; and get him to face his adversities in the only way he knew how. Dib barely remembered his father ever hugging him, loving him: a pat on the shoulder now and then perhaps, when he was especially pleased with him.

"Fine. Whatever. I'm coming." It was so easy to cling to resentment. But his father was trying to prod him forwards, to move on, and to use that energy to solve his problems. That was how his father dealt with emotional issues, and possibly Zim too. Gotta work work work.

In one of the many rooms, his father was facing a thin, expansive computer screen that was organized above three other smaller variants. This room was quite warm from all the heat expressed from the ever-working machines, computers and apparatuses. It was a large room, having been built to accommodate super computers and an MRI machine, with still plenty of room for his father's superfluity of other machines.

Dib, tight with anguished impatience, grew angry when he could not make sense of what he was looking at. The large computer screens were full of numbers that whittled down in large, sprawled columns.

"You mind telling me what this is all about?"

"I thought you'd never ask!" His father said. "I need to tell you exactly what's going on, and where we are on the board. That way we can both come to a solution. I took a sample of Zim's blood not long after he was first brought in. It was what I was analysing in that Petri dish. I compared this new sample to an old one I had kept in the freezer. It's my original sample from he had transformed back to normal from his baloney-like state all those years ago! That way I have a perfect comparison of the chemical changes in his body, and what he was like when he was healthy."

"Go on." He sat on a stool, rubbing at his eyes from beneath the rim of his glasses.

"The old sample is the one shown on the left and the new version is on the right." He said, gesturing at the two descending columns on the computer screen.

Dib strained harder at the numbers, his arms stubbornly folded in front of his chest. They were scrolling upwards, but he could make no definition between them.

"As the thing on his back – sorry – I mean, as his PAK degrades, it corrodes, and during the course of his life, particles of metal or plastic components have got inside him via his bloodstream – possibly from the connectors from the PAK to his biological body. These particles break down from larger particles, and they don't disappear or evaporate. They become small on a cellular level, enough to suffocate blood cells and slow down the body's natural chemical processes."

"I don't... I don't..." He did understand, but at the same time he really didn't.

He understood the natural breakdown processes of biological things, as well as the breakdown of materials. He knew how decomposition worked. But how could he ever to know the implications of having an inorganic implant to that of an organic creature? It was connected to his spine, his nervous system, and it was also connected to his pulmonary and circularity functions. And everything that frayed from the PAK over time got consumed by his biology.

Because it had to go somewhere.

Of course, a PAK was meant to sustain itself as anything could sustain itself, but fast-forward a couple of centuries and you had a corroding shell with corroding parts. And his body was trying to assimilate what fell in through the bloodstream, as the sea tried to assimilate all the rubbish that was dumped into it every year.

"All things deteriorate over time." His father continued. "I've done lots of investigating into his PAK, and found that the insulations over his drivers, tubes and whatnot simply do not last. They have degraded. Even the interior and exterior shell has degraded. The moisture on our planet may have done this, or speeded up the process at any rate. For no other alien creature like him has come into contact with Earth, have they? Well then. Living here may be the very reason his PAK has corroded so badly. Has your Zim ever had an aversion to water?"

"Y-Yes. Severely so."

"Ah well, that explains it. Not every alien is or can ever be built and ready to deal with whatever atmosphere he happens to be in. There is always a percentage of water in our atmosphere, especially in warmer environments. Most of the time water content averages to around 4% in the air we breathe." His father took this moment to look long and silently at the divulging results on the screen, even though Dib, as smart as he knew he was, could make neither heads nor tails of it.

"Perhaps we can...we can remove his PAK...get him to live without it." He felt as naive and as ignorant as a child. He was asking his father to do impossible things, but he asked it of him anyway.

"That I cannot do. From its design, and his biology, I can easily determine without any further examination that he cannot live without it. It seems a weakness in evolution, for at one point in their history they would not have worn them. The PAK is an external enhancement and the Irken body has gone soft with its own dependency on this technology. It seems to be able to power his organs in perfect balance, and it surely contains his atmospheric processor as well as drives which I assume serve as his memory banks. He warned me of them before, fearing that I might pry too deep. So removing it will sever all nerve stimulation, effectively killing him."

Despite these nightmarish facts resting upon the slew of worry he was already sustaining, his mind pictured Zim seesawing to the left, and crashing there, onto the carpet of the lounge floor after mewling weakly for Gir.

"What else?" Dib asked, wrenching himself from the memory. "Tell me everything. I have to know. And why...why was he coughing up blood before you arrived?"

His father looked down at him with tight rue. "Blood has accumulated in his small lungs. It's medically known as pulmonary edema."

"Oh...right."

The numbers on screen: categorizing billions of lines of nonsense, marching forever upwards unto infinity, dropped away entirely, and were replaced with schematics of the PAK in plain, avid detail. The professor touched the image's bottom line, where there was the vaguest little bump. "This here is a foreign article on the bottom left of your little friend's PAK. It is not made from the same material as the PAK and has a different carbonic age. I removed it, and it has caused no ill effects. I am currently running an analysis on it, to determine what it is. So far it seems to be a microprocessor."

"A what?" Dib languidly asked, still failing to fully pay attention.

"A chip. Like a CPU. Ah, it's probably nothing." He stood tall again for a moment, lapsing into another reverie of silence. Maybe his mind was busily processing solutions, results, or maybe he was waiting to see if Dib wanted to ask him anything else. So he did, without hesitation.

"So his PAK... You're going to fix it, aren't you? That's why I brought you those schematics!" It was the bottom-line of his hopes, his worries. "You can do it? Right?"

The professor rubbed at the collar line below his chin. "It would be better if I showed you. Come this way." The professor walked nonchalantly back into Zim's little ICU room again. The Irken hadn't moved – had never moved from lying on his side, chained as he was to all the tubes and wires. His head was tilted slightly back so that his throat was fully open for the breathing tube's admission. Under the blankets, the PAK legs made wayward lumps.

The professor cleared away one little thin but ultra soft blanket to reveal Zim's warm, frail body beneath. The gown he wore was still clean at least. Untying the tiny, silky threads that joined the parting down the middle, Prof. Membrane pushed the clothing aside to reveal a skeletally bandaged chest where very little flesh remained had it not been covered up. Unclipping the pins that secured it, the professor undid the bandaging, as if the time had finally come for his son to see what lay beneath. After some rough unwrapping – having to do it carefully so as not to jostle Zim around - the strips of gauze fell away, and Dib saw why his chest had been so securely wrapped.

The professor's voice sounded far away. "This is why I have kept your little friend's claws safeguarded in gloves, my boy, if he should ever wake again. This is the damage he has done."

The wounds beneath told their own dark, continued tale of pain. It looked like someone had taken a knife, and carved out random runes across the narrow breadth of his chest. It had not been cleaned; no one had had the time in the urgency to secure Zim's vitals, so it had just been bandaged. The flesh was still mottled and wet with darkly green undertones, having bled a few times following Zim's rescue. Tissue had been torn away from the seams that once held it, some of it hanging against bone – at least - Dib swore it was bone. There were contours of white beneath these scraps of flesh, which meant that Zim had torn into himself so deeply that he had started to unearth his own ribs. Had the pain been this deep; this harrowing, to cause Zim such grisly amounts of self-harm?

Maybe the PAK mostly provided Zim with potent pain relief, like some kind of automatic dispensary machine whenever the Irken suffered any level of hurt? But the analgesics the PAK willingly gave must have long been out of stock, for Zim had gone to the hard method of addictive drugs to end the problem: the rinauh injections. And when that too was taken from him, there was no escape for a body that could not manage even moderate levels of pain, let alone the agony he must have endured. So he began to tear himself apart. Like a crazed animal.

The mutilation, willingly set by one with such advanced intellect was simply horrifying.

xxx

Dib had gone outside for twenty minutes, and in that time, had smoked 5 cigarettes. He was down a whole pack, and when he came back in from the cold, he could smell the tobacco off his own skin and clothes, so he promptly changed into fresh clothes and returned with a tray with two mugs and a bowl – the mugs containing good old hot coffee, and the bowl full of boiling sterile water. However, he did not want to go back and look at Zim again. It was so hard to see him sprawled in bed, anchored by PAK legs that may or may not have nearly killed him. If the tired old Elite woke – even for a smidgen of a second – he had a nasty feeling that Zim would not speak, would not eat, and would not care.

 _And my dream? What about that dream, Dib? Is it so foolish to hope?_

 _Yes, yes it is. Zim would never hold my child. He never had the heart. Never had the kindness._

 _But he loved a robot, didn't he?_

To escape these thoughts, as if he was trying to escape himself, he carried the tray to the room, knowing that Clara would be there, like she always was. He'd have to face her too.

He pushed open the door, and felt the warmth of the room from the cold corridor he had just left. It made his glasses fog up temporarily.

Clara had gently lifted Zim up as much as the tubes had allowed, and coddled him, blankets and all, into her arms in the hopes of reaching out to him. He looked incredibly tiny and ill in her arms, a framework of all bone. His head was resting on her chest. His little legs were cushioned by her other arm. The heavy PAK legs were left to fall where they chose to lie.

"Where's dad?"

"Asleep. He hasn't had much rest for over twenty four hours. I... I didn't know your father and Zim had already made an acquaintance until your father told me. I know it was a great shock for you."

"Yeah." He didn't want to sound too hostile about it. The betrayal cut him, not as deep as before, but the pain still registered. "The two had a little clubhouse going. Behind my back. I don't know who's more foolish. Me or them."

"I just wish you had all been more open and honest with each other from that start."

Dib nodded. That he could agree with. Then he motioned to the bowl. "I'm going to clean his chest up. I wasn't going to, I kept holding off on it, thinking he'd..." He stumbled on the next word: found he couldn't say it.

"...How are your burns?" She asked, changing the subject.

"Better, thanks. Look, I'm sorry for shouting at you earlier. You did the right thing. You both did, when you hired that Nurse, and got my burns treated."

Her smile brightened.

He brought over the bowl of water, a towel and a pot of light pink soothing cream that happened to be one of the few items Clara had rescued from the Elite's home before it blew. He was getting much better at reading Irken from his long exposure to the alien language, and could read simple symbols. The cream, as stated on the plastic casing, read that it was an antiseptic suited for sensitive Irken skin, and promoted healing while offering pain relief when applied directly on the wound. There was a caution on the bottle, saying that it was a strong agent, and should be used sparingly.

Irkens never messed around when it came to medical interventions. It worked.

"Okay, Fudgekins. Let's see what we have here." He intoned, knowing full well that Zim was deep in sleep and could not hear him. But he wanted to chat to him; and had a nagging need to hear his replies, his reciprocations. Zim had been silent for much too long.

He unrolled the blankets, letting them fold at Zim's lap. Only, the Elite had tucked up an arm against his chest, and held this insecure position, even in sleep. It tugged deeply at Dib's heart, and he could feel his eyes begin to sting with tears. He fastened them away before they could appear, and he gently took hold of Zim's mitten and drew it down to his lap.

"Do you think he's in pain?" Clara asked, as if it had been on her mind for some time now, and had no one to ask up until this point. Zim was a lot different from the animals she had treated, but even so, he no longer had the power of speech, and was just as mute now as all her previous patients.

"I don't think so. My dad doses him with heavy pain relief every six hours. It's strong, like morphine. I think it's called norcine or something. But we have no idea how this norcine reacts with his enzymes and if they last longer or shorter in his system than it does ours. And I've got a nasty feeling all this rinauh he takes has increased his natural tolerance for any other painkiller, making it harder for conventional drugs to work."

"All those drugs the police confiscated were his?"

"Yup. What, you think they were mine?" He said, fooling her with a spurious 'shocked' expression.

She smiled back, though it was less steady than his.

He stooped downwards to unfasten the soft ribbons at Zim's gown, allowing the material to slip down each side of his bandaged chest. Then, unclipping the pins, he unravelled the dirty bandaging to reveal the damage beneath. Some of the slashes had been done at different angles, each one levelling a new frustration at himself: each one cutting deeper. This must have been going on even before they had tried to secure Gir, before Dib had walked through plasma fire. It was not just a sign of pain however, but undoubtedly one of depression. The destruction of Gir, and the loss of Dib had given way to the pleasure of madness, and in that madness, Zim had tried to find solace through pain.

As a soldier, he had been taught aught else.

"Clean the cuts first." Clara said, moving her arms out slightly towards her fiancé so that he could access Zim's chest better. "Then apply the cream. Make sure there's no clothing or fabric in those cuts. And don't worry if you make it bleed again. You've got to make sure there's no chance of infection."

"Okay." He was glad for the help. He wasn't great when it came to all things medical, even the darn basic common-sense stuff. He had a tendency to clench up when faced with blood, and being an adult hadn't fixed that.

He dabbed the cloth in the bowl after testing to see if the water was cool enough, and gently began to sponge it over the narrow strip of Zim's gory ribs. Within seconds the cloth came away mottled in shades of blackish green. And, as Clara had predicated, the deepest cut began to bleed again, the indents filling up and spilling over the tatters of flesh.

He tried to spy for any nestled bit of fabric. It was just as well Zim wore colourful clothing, making any stray bit of material easier to spot. Luckily there was nothing to remove, and Clara overviewed the procedure just in case he missed something.

During this process, Zim's chest cantered up and down at manipulated intervals, each lungful of air mirroring the expansion and deflation of the compressing air bag beside him: monitored and controlled by a computer. The tracheal tube kept Zim's mouth open slightly, just enough for the tube to run between his front teeth.

"He's going to make it." Clara said. He looked at her, and tried to see the reality of it, and couldn't.

"Don't get too hopeful, Clara. Besides, even if he does survive to an extent, and say we ameliorate his PAK, he has nowhere to live. His base was a part of him. It served his needs, his security, and his sanity. Without it, he'll only go crazy. You saw what it did to him when he heard the first explosion. I think it triggered the heart attack on the instant and that it had nothing to do with his PAK."

"You really think so?"

"I do. My dad can patch Zim's PAK up all his likes, but it's his spirit inside that's broken, and can't be fixed. I've never much liked to see things from his perspective, as we once considered each other the great bane of our lives, but I can see now why his base was so important to him. If I were stranded on another planet, alien to you and me, with no chance of getting back home again, I think I'd go crazy. I think...keeping him alive is...pointless. It took me awhile to come to terms with this. And now, seeing all these slashes on his chest, it's something I can ignore no longer. We should just...pull the plug. Let him die."

"But he has us."

"He doesn't know that. Fear of humans has blinded him to things like compassion and kindness. And even if he believed in those things, he's a soldier, born and bred. He was taught to treat compassion as weakness, and kindness as pity. And both those qualities he abhors."

"Give him time, Dib! Time to settle, time for him to get to know us! We can provide a new home for him! A new life! I want to teach him how to live, how not to be a soldier! We're not pulling the plug!"

He liked her optimism, he supposed, even though it was unfounded. She was a very maternal type of person that naturally had so much unconditional love in her heart.

He sighed, and rinsed the cloth back in the warm water. The once clear liquid had soured into a murky green gloom that made him think of lichen and green paint. Again he dabbed the cloth back over ripped skin, trying to be careful and not to disturb the ragged lips of flesh that had been sliced wide. It took him another three minutes to mop up the old blood, and though some of it bled anew, it did look better, even if all he had done was accentuate the damage. Then, using his hands after quickly sterilizing them under a tap nearby and using antiseptic to wash them with, Dib smeared the pink, analgesic Irken cream over rib contours and on open slits and furrowed gashes. A lot of olive green came away on his fingers, but more cream got on the wounds. He slathered on probably a bit more than he should, but, judging by the severity of the injuries, he had applied as much as he thought Zim needed. The task done, Clara gently shored him up against her as Dib wrapped his chest up in new sterile rolls of gauze after making sure all the ECG pads were in their correct positions. All the while, Dib kept one ear trained on the continuous bleeps of the ECG.

Dib tenderly helped lay him back down again in Clara's arms, tucking up his gown, retying the ribbons and covering him with the baby blue blanket.

xxx

The professor was trying to tease one PAK leg back into its assigned port. He was manipulating it gently at first, like easing a plastic arm joint that had popped out of a vinyl figurine by applying the exactness of pressure at the right angle.

But, when this did nothing short of giving the professor an aching arm, he applied rougher pressure and an alternative angle while Dib held Zim's little body down gently while his father pushed and shoved against him. The topmost joint of the PAK grated inside its aligned port by about one inch before it was rejected again with a coughing jar of gears, no matter how hard the scientist strained.

Either the gears that fed it back inside had all seized up, or Zim needed to be mentally inclined to accept them. Regardless, they were not going back in by themselves, or under the duress of rough persuasion. The professor mumbled his discourse, having been at this for thirty five minutes or so, thinking the task to be as simple as easing a book back into its assigned slot on a shelf. Turns out, it was harder than getting a cord of rope through a needle hole. Especially when each PAK leg was a rebellious rod of metal that was cumbersome to get around, the points of each being so sharp that they had begun to score marks into the bedding, and risked cutting through wires and tubes that catered to the intensive care of their patient.

When the rebellious prosthetic would not obey, having tried to tame its unruliness (for each PAK leg tended to fold and snap back really easily as if each one held a tight spring) he attempted it on a different one, knowing the results would be the same but trying anyway. The PAK legs just added unnecessary weight to Zim's frail body and sometimes obstructed the professor's work. They were also ungainly constructs, that it made manoeuvring their patient around all the harder. And when so straightforward a task became a task from hell, the professor now saw only one solution. When he told Dib of it, the young man shook his head.

"You can't rob him of these too! He's lost everything else! You...you can't! You just can't!"

"Son, he would benefit more without these constructs."

Zim losing his possessions had been a steady but consistent progression. The idea of the Elite losing another vestige of himself was just inconceivable. He could already hear Zim's imagined shock and rage in the back of his mind: his predicable reactions to his mechanised defences about to be amputated from his wellbeing. They were robbing a soldier of his last gun: his last part of Irk. Of home. The very thing that epitomized his race.

"You... you can't!" He blabbed, purely on autopilot. He had been on autopilot in fact, since he'd woken from his fainting spell. He hadn't quite felt like himself, and had, in his numbness, felt incomplete. Now, in this uncontrollable maelstrom of emotions that highlighted his futility, he could only harden his stare at his father, reeling at what he intended to do.

"These leg prosthetics demand power from this cyborg-PAK device, power he had no longer afford and they are an unnecessary weight. Once I remove them, his PAK will be much lighter, which will mean less strain on his heart, and his arthritic joints will benefit as well."

"But they act as his shield! His mental security! They mean much more to him than their material-functionalities propose! Dad! Don't remove them! Please!" But he knew that his father's mind was made up, and that there would be no persuading him.

The idea of Zim having no PAK legs sounded so perverse. So wrong on every scale. It was a sacrifice Zim may not be prepared to handle. But already his wayward father was moving to some units, looking for tools Dib could only imagine as he began preparations to actively remove Zim's prosthetic-weaponry.

"He'll get used to the idea, I am sure." His father said noncommittally, focused banally on his approach. He located the right tools for the job: a metal cutter and its power cord. "Now place that mat under him. I don't want to cut into the bed, there's a good boy."

Dib functioned with as much feeling as an android bereft of purpose: stung as could be in a maelstrom of indecision. He slipped the mat under Zim, minding the network of wires as he did, and it encompassed the PAK legs as well: doomed as they were to be eviscerated from their master. Dib had always seen them as pious things with a life of their own: serving multiple purposes for their Irken commander: such as bolstering his personality, heightening his distinction in mentality as well as his physicality, and of course supplying him with self-assurance. Now, like everything else the Irken once possessed within his unfailing stringency of protection, they too would be removed, cut bare, and carted away like abnormalities.

"No..." Dib tried to say, when really all that came out was a limp, pathetic whimper.

"Step back, son, and cover your alien friend with a blanket. This shouldn't hurt him, it's only metal." He said, as if dismantling Zim of his most-dependable gadgets was no different than removing a diseased limb from an indifferent tree that would have no trouble growing it back. "Your friend won't mind too much, once he gets used to the idea, like I said."

Dib was too lost in surprise to reply. He had about come to the end of his emotional endurance, and just complied woefully: placing a woollen blue blanket that encompassed Zim's body and some of his head. His father plugged in the power cord, affixed it to the cutter, and powered it up, testing it to see how finely the metal razor disks turned in their sockets. It was like listening to the menacing buzz of a chainsaw. The disks spun so fast he could not see the individual blades turning or the occasional blot of grease on them.

"Shouldn't we sedate him?" Dib called above the well of noise, fearing Zim's fear should he wake in the midst of their plan to amputate his prosthetics.

"No, no," his father returned, "his body cannot withstand any more of those sedatives. It'll only make him sick." And, without delay he shifted the first PAK leg so that it lay halfway across the bed, its pointy end hanging over the coverlet like a stiff tail. He stood over it, like an executioner standing over a prisoner readying to chop off their head. Then he lowered the cutter, aiming for the first joint leaning out of the port at the topmost configuration of the PAK. The cutter was now alarmingly close to Zim's actual PAK – the cyborgentic heart of every Irken.

Sparks flew, and the shriek of metal being cut was deafening. Dib pulled himself closer to Zim's general littleness, cupping his head into his arms and holding onto his mittens as his father bent, the cutter labouring as it ate into Irken material. There were colourful sparks of blue and gold: flaring upwards like the tendrils of a firework. They flashed into the glass of his father's goggles, and the lens of his own spectacles.

"Tougher than I expected." The professor confessed loudly over the procession of the hiss and shriek of the cutter tunnelling powerfully into metal.

Dib was pretty sure the subtraction of his PAK legs wouldn't hurt. He tried to think back on their glut of battles, trying to surmise if, during their private wars, they had been compromised before. Zim had gone through quite a bit of personal damage during their 'games' and he was pretty sure the PAK legs had no internal biological nerve structure – just mechanical. Zim remained locked deep in sleep, his good antenna pressed against his head, its length running under the blankets. His breathing and heart rate kept to a passive monotonic cadence.

Seeing these unchanging signs brought Dib immeasurable relief.

From the noise, Clara poked her head in through the doorway, having been woken from her sleep. She was in her pyjamas, wearing a pale cream gown. Her eyes, rimmed in fatigue, searched him and his father for an explanation to their collective madness. Dib noticed her and shook his head apologetically. "They've got to come off." He mouthed the words, worried his voice could not be heard over the constant din. She seemed to get the message, but looked no more enlightened. Just dazed. As if they had done great wrong by making a weighty decision without her consent. Then, watching the proceedings for about half a minute, she shambled away again, back to make some more coffee.

Dib sighed, gently dug his fingers into Zim's mittens, and watched his father deepen the cut down the first PAK leg segment. Within it was a whole hub of thick wiring, all nestled and compacted together like follicles, or fibres, made for precise movement from the cerebral PAK connection driven by Zim's brain. These too were severed through, exposing their filaments as they departed from the port. The professor got to the underside, not stopping until the whole leg was divorced from its mooring. Then, without its anchorage, it slipped down the bed and hit the wooden flooring, creating a dull, dead thump.

Dib watched its departure, feeling all the more heartbroken to see it lying there, now useless, like a severed organic limb. He almost expected to see blood trailing after it.

With it now gone, the port successfully closed, tucking all of its severed filaments back in, having been open all this time to emit the leg.

Three remained.

As if spared from all emotional grievances, the professor bent down and continued the thankless job, proceeding without pause to disconnect the next PAK leg. Dib tried to imagine what it would be like without them. Really, from a human perspective, it would make little difference. They were just cosmetic implements, designed to give the soldiers an edge to their combat styles. But to Zim it might be a horror personified.

It took his father a good twenty minutes to cut through and disconnect the other three. After each one was unceremoniously detached, the adjoining port closed automatically, as if relieved to do so. The metal dust leftover from the duty was all hoovered up, and Zim's protective blanket was dumped in the waste disposal unit. Free from such gangly things, Dib could now see what his father was trying to make him see. Without them, Zim was almost four times lighter, and they could finally get to him without these long things impeding their work.

The professor rested the legs out lengthways on a nearby bench, manipulating them so that they ran taut and straight. Now they looked like foreign museum exhibits from a lost age. And they too looked old. Each leg had its own history of marks upon its metal sheathing, showcasing all the dents, scratches and blemishes Zim had accumulated over the years, like a car's worn chassis. It implied their heavy usage: Zim's fallback tools. His stability. Now they were redundant things, lying here on this bench like discarded junk.

Even so, he admired their toughness, their alien elegance and reliable design. Though they now served little purpose other than to forever be a passing curiosity, Dib would always keep them.

And, ever the inquisitive overseer to all things paranormal, he scooped all four into his arms to better determine their weight. He was astonished at their combined burden. For a full grown human, the load wasn't all that much. They could weigh about as much as 2 or even 3 kilos, given their almost- hollow design, sleek flexibility and slenderness to better their fit inside the PAK and to provide the Irken with additional support. But nevertheless they had to be a burden on someone so small and equally as delicate: an inescapable weight Zim had to carry on his back at all times.

And now that he held them, cradling the military constructs in his arms as their flexing joints dipped downwards, causing them to run limp without consolidated purpose, he realized how very small and dainty they truly were. For years he had always imagined them to be larger and longer, having faced off with Zim and his PAK legs numerous times as a child.

Having not heard Clara come up beside him, she ran a hand round his back, and squeezed him. He reciprocated by leaning into her, his arms full of metal rods.

"Now it's just the barriers in here." She claimed, and she pointed to her head, indicating Zim's mental warfront.

* * *

 **Dib07:** An old proverb - _'For things to change, old skin must be shed.'_


	37. To be Old and New again

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless. When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 _Blocks of text in italics means that it's a flashback._

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

* * *

 **A/N:**

This is the angst you all get when I have a keyboard in front of me! I implore you all to find me, and take the damn things away! XD

And uh man I gotta implode again with happiness, **Hailsdoesart,** aka **Queenstiel** has done fanart! Oh gods I wish it could hoist it up on this page! I love your style, Hailey, and you are officially the third person to draw Clara! I love how you've drawn her the same way **Alicartin** has done (which reminds me, Discount Smeet needs updating lol). **BirdNerd03** has also drawn her so damn well, and omg I DON'T DESERVE THIS! Every time fan art flags up I think I am going to literally die from joy and shock and surprise. No joke. Someone may need to have an ambulance on standby or something. XD So thank you so, so, SO SOOOO much, Hailey. I always reel about it. I just write crap, and then get so much love and joy in return. Sharing this story was the best decision I have made. And it's been a journey. I cannot get over what you did - I really can't. I love you. You're still one of the reasons I updated not so long ago, (And **piratemonkies64** and OMG SO MANY!). And yes, I see you have finished The Game, and I am dying to catch up and read it. (stories come and go too quickly, don't they?) Congrats on finishing it. Wait for me, I am coming to devour it soon! XD

Temporarily I have included the tracheal intubation (well, extubation) scene _(Note to self: tracheal intubation makes pulmonary edema worse) for YOU_ **RissyNicole!** Gosh. Well, what you ask for, you shall receive! Heh! Enjoy! Lol! When you read it, you'll know why I omitted it! It's just angsty!

* * *

 **guestrev**

Yes, everything seems to be on the up. (fingers crossed)

 **Guest**

Haha! Gods, please don't die on me! PLEASE!

 **Guest**

I know. I know! I do too many bad things. XD

 **Moops**

Omg that was such the cutest thing you wrote. Lol. Angry lil hands. So cute.

* * *

 **CHAPTER 37 (43): To be Old and New again**

 _'Can we keep our bearing straight_  
 _Or will we be blown off course_  
 _Are we instruments of fate?_  
 _Do we really have a choice?'_

 _Boat Song - Woodkid_

Clara knew she would get reprimanded for her clutter that had grown from a small pile, to various slightly bigger piles. First it was just the paper bag containing all her knitting essentials, like the yarn, the needles and measurements. They had evolved into clothing of various fabrics and colours, all of which would fit Zim. It was ideal when you had a patient who didn't move. Many times she took a tape measure and measured the length of his arm or legs and waist and chest to get an ideal measurement. And to add to her clutter was a stack of old books accumulating on the middle shelf – of which they were mainly old fairy tales she had read and enjoyed as a child with few privileges from the orphanages' limited library, like Peter Pan, The Last Unicorn, Jack and the Beanstalk and many others.

She dipped a cloth into the warm water in the plastic basin, rinsed it out and used it to wipe the feverish shine from Zim's forehead. He drew back away from her in sleep; probably having a nightmare or a very surreal dream. The colour had returned to his cheeks, and he no longer looked like he had been rubbed in snow.

The professor came in, preposterously tall and authoritative with his stern lab coat and enclosed expression with a stethoscope resting across his broad shoulders. He came across as always so mutually formal as if, during the course of his life, he had forgotten how to converse with his fellow species. "Ah, young lady! During our ill tidings I have had the misfortunes of not remembering my manners. How are your accommodations?"

"Just fine, thank you." She was surprised that he had allowed her to sleep in the same room with her fiancé, in a cosy double bed. However, despite the friendly lodgings, Prof. Membrane intimidated her just a little. Maybe it was because she could not truly see his face, or because he was so aloof in all things. Or maybe it was because she got the impression he was always sizing her up. After all, Dib was something of a celebrity, and she was just a stray. A nobody. An orphan.

Then he glossed over her book and knitting collection, and she inclined closer to the bed, hunching her shoulders; just knowing he was going to mutter his disapproval.

He looked at them with vague disregard, as if he was curious, yet not really bothered by them. "I'm sorry." He said. "I didn't quite catch your name. Clara...?"

"Vernon. Clara Vernon." She muttered it quickly, as if the sound of her own surname hurt her mouth.

"Ah. Yes." Then he disappeared into the room next door, and her heart sank. He was probably typing her name into a computer, and seeing the incriminating results that would follow. It would not be the first time this had happened to her.

And when you had a fiancé whose father was super smart, how could she believe even for a moment that the surface of her integrity would stay untouched?

Anybody could look at anyone's history these days. Privacy was becoming scarcer by the day in this modern world where anything about anyone was digitally engraved on the internet.

Five minutes later, the professor returned, nonchalantly humming some tuneless tune, and holding a clipboard charting Zim's progress as if that's what he had been doing all the while, and had not reading up on her history.

She felt cornered: belittled, even though he had not yet said a word, and was only visually checking the ECG patterns while he hummed a tune.

Funny how secrets always had a way of getting out. And no matter how small they were, they still put dirt on her.

So, she tried to be brave, adopting Zim's fondest trait, and said to the professor: "Are you going to tell him? Tell your son about me?"

The professor turned to her, perhaps estimating her character. Her question. And deciding whether he should acknowledge it or not. But he surprised her, as he always did. "You are... a very perceptive young lady." He said, having to come to terms with the admittance. It was not often he was caught out. Not often someone else could read him. "I know what... loss can do. We've all lost something or someone dear Miss. Vernon. You need not apologize or explain anything to me. It's the present that counts. Not the past. If you tell him, it'll be on your own terms, not mine."

She smiled. She couldn't help it. "Thank you." Dark visions of being abandoned again were temporally vanquished. She regretted thinking of the professor as some aloof, calculating human being. He did what he had to do. He was human too, and as much as she battled to quell her fears, she reminded herself that she didn't need to be so wary of him after all.

He really was a smart man, like the world said he was.

Clara dipped the cloth back in the basin again when she saw one smooth, long antenna bob and flex. The professor had noticed, and remained impeccably calm.

Like a wilting grass stem, it came to rest on the pillow, and stopped moving.

If consciousness had been breached, however thinly, it had not lasted.

Clara wasn't sure why the little thing wasn't waking. He wasn't on sedatives anymore. Only painkillers, strong dobutamine and other medicines the professor was gently applying as a try-and-test method in case any one of these drugs could make Zim worse.

The professor approached the bed with a blood pressure monitor, and wrapped the enormous Velcro cuff around a twig of a pale green arm once he had rolled up his pink sleeve. "It's imperative that we remove the intubation tube. I hope to get to work on his PAK-device this very evening! And we cannot forestall or delay the procedure. Keeping the tube in him will only weaken his lungs in due course. As it is, the oxygen levels in his blood are back up to scratch."

The PAK in question – like Zim's body – was monitored around the clock for any signs of changing. Its state had remained the same since Zim's admission – the exterior shell seemed to be exhibiting excessive heat as if whatever acted as the coolant had failed. The little pink port lights were unusually dim, and could barely be discerned when all the lights in the room were shut off. The ports were likened to the dwindling embers of a used up cigarette butt after Dib had tossed it to on the gravel outside: watching the cinders fade and die.

"Professor," she began, "how are you doing to do this exactly? Fix his... machine device?"

The professor adjusted the Velcro strap. Started blowing up the air from the valve to compress the inflation apparatus around Zim's arm. "We're going to approach this in two big steps, Miss. Vernon."

"Please, call me Clara."

"First, we get the mite breathing on his own. That should be straightforward. Second! I shall amalgamate his PAK with modified parts. Such a procedure will no doubt challenge my wisdom. It could cause neurological complications, respiratory and circulatory collapse. But that's the worst case scenario. All in all, he has a sixty percent chance of survival! And I like those odds. Psychological damage, however, is something I cannot determine."

 _Even if he could feasibly get back on his feet again, he may not want to._

Whenever Zim did wake, for mere seconds before sinking back down again, hardly revealing little more than a slant of watery red from under his eyelids, he did not seem to notice the tube down his throat, or the way his lungs acted without the personal efforts of his body.

"I think we'll try to remove the tracheal tube now." He said. The blood pressure device deflated. The professor took the measured reading from a singular glance. "Staying on compulsory oxygen is making his pulmonary edema much, much worse! The bed rest has done him good, and though I would much prefer that the mite be more awake for this procedure, I think it would be best if we get him breathing on his own again this instant."

"Maybe I should get Dib..." She wasn't sure where he was, or what was taking him so long. It could be that he was with Nurse Joy again, having his burns soaked in cream, or kicking at stones in the lab's garden. She felt that she did not know him anymore. He was a different person now. Did not listen to her or anybody in fact, and stooped into his own dark thoughts far too often, and for far too long.

"No, no! We'll do just fine. Let's remove this tube, shall we?" He went to get some equipment, mainly the external breathing apparatus.

Clara turned to Zim whose wrinkled eyes were still pinched shut. "We're removing the tube in your throat. You've got to start breathing again." She told him in clear words in case he could hear her. "It'll be over soon."

The professor meanwhile was untangling the respiration tube as he prepared a less invasive respiration model: the normal breathing apparatus with the plastic mask. "Keep talking to him." The professor advised. "And tell him to try and breathe. I'm going to remove the intubation tube as quickly and as painlessly as I can."

Clara visibly tensed, her hand squeezing Zim's claw-mitten.

"Sit him up, gently Clara. Support him. Carefully now..."

She did as was instructed; gently making sure that Zim's head was leaning into her shoulder as she shored his little body upright.

The professor cupped the outer mask with his hand, and, with the other, titled Zim's head further back. After removing the outside tape that kept the mask in place on skin, he started dragging it upwards and outwards. There was a gurgle as the tube was lifted out of the old Elite's lungs: scarping along his swollen throat. The ECG spiked with fast, loud blips.

"Easy, easy!" Clara coddled him, feeling the corded tension bunch up inside his body.

"Almost there!" Prof. Membrane drew out the last inch of it, and it scraped out between Zim's teeth. Drool and discharged blood followed its retreat. As soon as it had come away, Clara mopped up the spillages around his mouth with a tissue but just as the professor was about to equip Zim's mouth with the new oxygen mask, the little Irken started burping up more blood. Clara went white, her body freezing up on her. Dark visceral fluids dripped out of his lower lip and teeth.

"This is no good!" The professor acted rather startled with this new development, and leaned Zim's upper body forwards slightly. "Cough it out!" He told the Irken. "You must!"

Blood pattered onto his clean bed sheets like rain drops.

"Cough!" The professor slapped the side of his chest in an effort to wake him up: to bring him out of whatever daydream he was in. "Clara, tilt him back slightly, to his left side!"

"Breathe, Zim! Just breathe!" She coaxed, feeling fresh waves of fear strike her like punches to the gut. She didn't know what to do, only to await some kind of miracle like a useless fool.

Suddenly his little chest moved – not by much. Just a shy jerk.

The professor began thumping Zim's little chest where his diaphragm was located. "Breathe! Draw in those little lungs! Cough! You must!"

The lack of air must have done something. For Zim cramped up weakly, his slow brain registering the absence of sustained air and the inexpiable loss of it. He was trying – really trying to inhale. Clara suspected that Zim had weak lungs – the lungs of an insect. His lungs were not strong mammalian lungs. He was quite possibly a creature who had never been designed to hold his breath for very long – for he did not need to swim and hold his breath, for example, or to really do much on his own without relying on the PAK. His lungs did not have the capacity or the efficiency as theirs. Even Dib himself knew that they had been too diaphanous to see when he had used the organ x-ray device back when he was a kid.

In desperation, Prof. Membrane was hitting the Irken in the back by using the side of his palm, trying to shock Zim into action. There was a croak, and then a cry as Zim sucked in a thin slither of air before he rattled with deep, chesty coughs. The professor quickly placed the soft plastic of the oxygen mask over him, and held it in place, hoping the concentrated levels of air would provide immediate relief to his lungs.

There was a great cankerous cough that spewed black blood against the inside of this newly positioned oxygen mask. Clara was rubbing his back up and down, and the professor drew away slightly, as if he was giving space for Zim to breathe, allowing him time to get used to the arduous task newly demanded of him.

Another cough followed the first, and more blood joined the first splatter.

"Easy, easy." Clara was rubbing his chest, and watching him very, very carefully for signs of pain or shock. Zim could not endure any more of either.

Zim gulped down another desperate slither of air, his underworked lungs wheezing loudly. His head was slung low, and each heavy exhale made the insides of his oxygen mask fog up. Clara could literally feel Zim shaking. His arrhythmic heart was hammering with accustomed unsteadiness, its distraught pitch echoed back in the ECG. She suspected that Zim could still feel the ghost of the tube down there; wedged inside his throat and lungs.

"Shush, little creature." The professor cooed gently, "Deep breaths. One at a time, little one. One at a time. Take as much time as you need."

Slowly, the fit of panic that had so seized the invader started to trickle away. He was drinking in breaths a little easier, which cleared the painful fog in his head, and dissipated the leaden fire in his lungs.

"Easy now. Easy does it." The professor whispered. They didn't move for a while, allowing Zim time to adjust to breathing again. It's okay." The professor gently put a hand over Clara's arm, and gave her a reassuring squeeze. She still could not take her eyes off the Irken. "He's breathing. All by himself. But he's exhausted. I'll prepare for the next phase. We do not have much time."

"Time? What do you mean?" She asked, looking at him now, a stray band of auburn hair hanging between her wet eyes. "He's too weak for anything else right now."

"I know, dear Clara, I know."

-x-

Clara turned the page of Peter Pan, looked at the next word and struggled to find the strength to continue. How many days had she spent here, how many hours had she sat on this very chair, looking over the many medical instruments when the tedium stretched onwards to an uncertain eternity? She lowered the book with nervous hands, feeling foolish for reading out loud to no one but herself, when she saw Zim stir. She paused, her blood chilling to ice, and every single word suddenly wanted to pop out of her mouth, and, paradoxically, she had no idea what to say at all.

Velvet eyelids opened to a scratch, and autumnal red shined out between them. Claws, battened by tough mittens, flexed beneath the blankets. His healthy antenna stretched forwards: listening, feeling the atmosphere like whiskers on a cat. The hypnotic blips on the ECG escalated into quicker, shorter strokes.

She wanted to call for somebody. She had no idea where Dib was. As of just lately, he had gone off the map. The professor was going over the new instalments for this PAK-thing, combing through it one final time, even though she was sure he had finished work on it earlier this afternoon.

Zim winked those eyelids closed again, his tiny body tensing beneath the soft, cream-coloured blankets as if he was about to tip into a seizure. The antenna fell back again. The accelerating blips did not decline.

She knew she had to say something. Was it her reading that had woken him, or was it the absence of her voice?

Clara reached out, and gently touched the bone of his shoulder beneath the soft silk of the blanket. She could feel him trembling through it.

"Zim? Easy! It's me, Clara! You remember me, don't you? Hush! It's going to be okay! You're safe! Safe!"

Those eyes, tired and secretive, like dark alcoves in a forest on a summer's day, opened again, his pinkish orbs coasting over to look at her from the depths. She felt cold, unnerved. Scared. She hadn't expected the moment to suddenly come, and with her all alone with him. "It's Clara!" She said again. She knew he could speak. The tracheal tube had been gently removed last night when the oxygen levels in his blood had improved, and the professor had replaced it with a standard plastic ventilation mask to keep his lungs from getting too irritated. Zim had only been semi-conscious at the time, and not all there for any one moment. And perhaps that was a mercy, given how much blood he had coughed out from the edema after the tube had been removed.

Clara glanced, in a panic, over her shoulder to see if anyone was coming in, if anyone was close by. Where were they when she needed them most?

Zim tipped his attention away from her, his eyes seeming to lose focus. He was trembling again. It was probably shock.

"Zim? Please, it's okay."

A deep, calm voice beckoned from behind her, and her horror melted away at once. "Now, now, there's no need to fear me, or anyone else here." Professor Membrane walked into the room with sedate steps, and he reached the edge of the Irken's bed. His antenna barely moved to sum up this new intruder. It was like his veins, his nerves, his brain was doped. But he had been off the strong sedatives for almost fourteen hours. "We're here to help you." To lessen his great height it seemed, the professor bent down onto his knees by the bed, the ECG at his back, and even then he was still quite high. And he continued to talk to the old soldier. "You were in a lot of pain when I got to you. You knew you could have come to me."

"Pro...professor..." Clara started, "He's... he's shivering."

He frowned at the interruption. "What you are feeling will be strange, little one. But I assure you it's for the best. Now, let's get you sitting up."

There was a squealing, piglet-like whimper from the Irken, and Clara's heart tore at the sound.

The professor's large gloved hands, looking far too rough and cumbersome for such a gentle job, carefully raised Zim's heavy head. "Miss. Vernon. The pillows."

She had to physically jerk herself from her own palsy – her shock, and immediately started to shore up the two soft pillows.

Like he was handling a cracked eggshell, the professor slowly, tenderly lifted Zim upright, securing his weight so that he couldn't flop forwards or sideways. Then he was eased against the arrangement of pillows, and the professor shored up the creamy blanket so that it kept his bandaged chest warm. Through it all, Zim's mentality seemed to float, like an unfettered cloud. His eyes were still soft ruby grooves, never really looking at them, only through them if they happened to be in his line of sight. Then the professor turned on his knees, and started fetching something out of a drawer by the bed. Clara gently snaked her long fingers around one of his mitten-claws, and squeezed it. Something registered in those dull, weedy eyes of his, and his head turned slightly so that he could look at her.

 _I know what it's like to lose it all._ She wanted to tell him so badly. To raise him away from the platform of his agonies. _To think that you have no one. But it's not true. Not true at all._

The professor had a tiny, sharp hypodermic needle cradled in one hand. "It's a little pick-me up, little one. It'll be gentle on your system." Zim's dull gaze broke from Clara as he tracked the needle in the larger man's hand. The shivering spread to his antenna: to his knees beneath the layer of blankets.

 _He must be so confused._ Clara thought. "We should get Dib! I think Zim would like to see him!" She could not stand to see Zim this way. He was so tiny, so lost and frail: an emblem of desolation. Where were his rebuffs? His strong will and character? It had all melted away, leaving them with this trembling wreck of an Irken.

Professor Membrane passed her a look which could have meant anything.

Zim's eyes were still on the needle, and Clara could feel his claw weakly flexing in and out as he worried. Then he coughed. It was a weak, syrupy sound, reflecting the fluids within, and greenish blood splattered the inside of his breathing mask. Instinctively, with her free hand, Clara rubbed his back below his spherical device.

"Is he in pain?" She asked the professor, for Zim seemed unable to reveal these urgent questions.

"No, no he shouldn't be. He's on strong analgesics that are better on his system than some others I've tried in smaller doses."

"Why isn't he talking to us?"

The professor fell back on the analytical approach because it was what he knew best. "His vocals should work fine. Memory may be lacking, but I assure you he can speak." He lifted the hypo. Zim swung his gaze away from it, antenna flattening against his head, leaving his crooked left to stick, propped out, as it had always done.

Lifting a loose sleeve of pink, the tip of the needle went into the skin above the Elite's elbow. Zim shut his eyes in a bitter scrunch, gurgling the faintest mewl.

"Just a little sting," Clara encouraged, giving him all the comfort she could give, hoping it would liven his spirit, "to help you feel better."

Zim's heaving chest hitched a little as he endured the invasive cold bite of the needle. Clara was sure it was the act of the thing that upset him most, and not what it did.

The professor emptied the medicine into the vein, and drew the needle back out again, closing the pinprick hole with a cotton bud. Then, ever looking for the next task at hand, he lifted away Zim's breathing mask, swabbed out the blood with sterile wipes, and placed it back over him again.

She could barely tolerate his look of multifaceted fear and abandonment. "I'm... I'm going to get Dib." She let go of his wrapped-up claws, left her seat and walked to the threshold of the door, but before she had taken one step out of the room, she heard a brittle croak that might have been a scream if he had had the strength to issue it. She turned, and saw Zim looking pleadingly at her from the bed. Then his eyes rolled into the back of his head. It looked like he was falling unconscious. She ran back, grabbed those claws and ran a shaky hand upon the bone of his skull. "I'll stay." She said, "I'll stay."

His chest heaved out a breath as though he had just drawn a long sigh, and those tired eyes cleared a little as they opened again. The trembling abated.

Still, he did not speak.

The professor looked to her, as if surprised Zim needed anything, let alone her company. Then, saying to Zim, he said, "I'll go fetch my wayward son. Keep in mind, my friend, that as soon as I'm ready, and I will be very shortly! I am going to repair your mechanical PAK device as much as I am able. Then you can cause as much chaos as your little heart permits." He patted Zim's head like he was somebody's pet, and he walked away to get Dib.

Zim, leaning lifelessly into his pillow, looked at her occasionally as if to see if she was still there. His wild, feverish shivers had weakened, and he looked much more restive.

Perhaps the injection the professor had given him was working. Then a hand at his left side lifted up to rub at his chest, as he might have done not so long ago, and Clara instantly caught it, and smoothed it back on upon his lap. "No." She said. He was probably doing it more out of habit, then actual pain. Irkens were not good contenders with discomfort. They tried to defeat it, attack it, like it was a physical enemy, and not something they were willingly able to tolerate. Their PAKs, she was quickly learning, carted away that measure of hurt effortlessly. Now Zim had to deal with any shortcomings himself with no tech to depend on. And he didn't know how else to deal with pain. "You mustn't do that."

There was a rush of feet out in the corridor, and Clara's skin bristled at the noise that sounded so acute and destructive in the calm she had built. Then the bludgeoning clatter of feet stopped short, as if the owner was aware of the noise, and Dib appeared in the doorway, a sweeping smile filling his face.

It was like seeing an old reunion of high school friends.

Dib glided in, looking tall and aglow with timid joy, and Zim's right antenna shot up, his glazed eyes opening wider than they'd ever gone since he'd woken.

"How are you doing hotshot?" The young man asked, taking up position on the other side of the bed, looking as drawn and as pinched as Zim did. "I've missed you. More than you know. And I didn't think I could ever miss a cranky alien or your contempt for the human race."

Zim looked up at him, and there was a ghost of contentment, Clara was sure of it. But he still did not voice a single word. And she could plainly see the splinter of sadness dent Dib's fragile happiness.

"You feel different, don't you?" Dib asked him. "I know you do." He stammered into silence for a moment, as if weakened by Zim's alien apathy. He could not tell what he was thinking. But Dib must have looked inward, saw the resolve there, and brushed the trepidation aside. "It'll feel strange, and you may hate it for awhile, but trust me, you will feel so much better."

There was no open rebuttal, and no denunciation from his alien. It had felt like years, not months, since last they were in the Treaty; teasing each other about their lives, their differences. There were times when Zim had lifted the table over when he had lost to a game of chess, or checkers, (and he didn't lose often), and it always drew the attention of the other pub goers, forcing Zim to give them a guilty smile, and a lame excuse. Now the Elite didn't look like he had the strength to get up and move. And, after this PAK renovation, the professor intended to get Zim up and walking to improve circulation before atrophy set in.

Irkens had such lean, condensed muscle, that they atrophied surprisingly quickly.

Dib looked like a rock face about to crumble so Clara stepped in; "You're going to come and live with us, Zim, as soon as you like."

The faintest spark of surprise loomed in the Irken's dark, glazed eyes. It was as if he was so convinced of his own loneliness, his own shame in his defeat, that he had never ever considered such an outlandish possibility.

"How about it, Fudgekins? Coming to live with me and Clara? You'll get your own room. Your own little place to call home." Dib asked imploringly, but he was growing desperate the longer Zim was mute. And as much as he tried to batten down the lid of his own panic, he could not. "Zim? Zim please speak to me! Say something! Call me names! Swear at me! Do what you do best and hate me!"

Zim remained a floppy, slumped doll. He breathed. He blinked. It was about all he did.

Dib looked to the professor who had returned and was presiding close by. "Dad, he's not... not brain damaged, is he? When you tried to get him on oxygen..."

"His brainwaves are functioning adequately enough for cognitive purposes." His father returned objectively. He then lifted up an arm, and read something on the touch screen on his wrist. "I'm off to acquire all the instruments necessary for his repair. I shan't be long." And he disappeared again.

Dib looked down at his alien again, seeing that Zim had closed his eyes.

-x-

The professor had exhaustively scanned the PAK beforehand, having uploaded its integral design into his computer to study its mantle, and its secretive core, so he knew what to look for, and where most of the damage was hiding.

Even though Dib had been praying for this moment, it still came too soon. Gravity thickened around him, making each footfall seem more defined. Each syllable spoken somehow more amorphous. He wasn't ready. But he knew they had to push on.

Zim, barely surfacing from his sea of unconsciousness, was gently moved onto a bench for easy all-round access to his body. Beneath him was an absorbent mat, and on top of that was a heater blanket. The oxygen tanks had been moved to stand beneath the bench, and any excess tubing had been tied up. The professor had monitored and studied his vital signs for anything that might show a subtle weakness that could prevent the ceremonial opening of the PAK, but so far, though his vitals were in the critical zone – they were stable enough to proceed.

"You can be brave too, Zim." Dib whispered, holding onto his little white mittened hand. Zim had been positioned to lie cantered on his chest, so that he lay on his right side. His head was supported by a shallow pillow, and his left arm was also supported by a blanket to keep his body evenly aligned. This helped the professor access the stationary PAK without any inopportune incline.

Zim's eyes always foretold of the withdrawn Irken confined within. His pinkish pupils never moved or shifted under the duress of Dib's voice, his touches, or his presence. He never acknowledged the professor or Clara as if they were but paper fragments blowing about in the dark realm of his apathy. His face was lined and pale with exhaustion.

"We're going to repair your PAK now. Just as we'd originally planned." Dib told him, not relenting in the face of Zim's mental atrophy – just banally chatting away as was his usual nature. He always waited for a response, no matter how tiny or remote.

His father was setting aside tools, checking to make sure he had everything at the ready. But his ministrations went unnoticed as Dib purely focused on his oldest rival. His oldest friend. "Zim." He entreated on a personal level, trying to see what was still there, behind his faded eyes. He wanted to reach in, and pull Zim back out of this jaded shell of depression. "It helps. To talk. About how you feel. There's no harm in giving it a go."

Zim exhaled slightly harder, causing the inner plastic of his mask to mist up, but it was the only indication he gave. It was almost a sign of impatience; the usually conceited annoyance he emitted when Dib had said something ludicrously stupid.

Dib persisted, glimpsing the remotest signs of life stir somewhere inside. He wanted Zim to relax, and shirk away those principles the military had stamped into him. Because, really, who was watching, who was taking notes? It was almost as if Zim believed himself to be a performer on a theatrical stage, and that someone, somewhere in the darkness of the back row, was taking notes on his performance; judging his underlying commitments to the Empire. It was not beyond Zim's selfish realms of belief.

When still no retort was forthcoming, Dib tried something else: "I want you to survive this, butterball. We need you. I need you. I can't look at my burns without you. I'm too afraid to see the person beneath the bandages on my own. I'm pathetic, Zim. I'm half a man without you."

He knew this to be true.

Enemies always baptised the hero in fire. Without a good antagonist, something viable to overcome, how could heroes ever improve? And have the strength to overcome their inner demons along the way?

"I have everything set out now. The future I always wanted. Except, it won't be what I want. Not without you by my side. You wanted me to have babies with Clara? You know, with my 'applicable' partner? Yeah. I'll have them. And you can be their fucking uncle. How about that? You want to be ordered around? Clara can be your new Tallest. You idiot. You selfish, fucking idiot."

Maybe, in losing Gir, Zim had had to confront a deeper failure in himself, a latent defeat in his duty and role as an Irken soldier.

Everything Zim ever did encompassed his solider-ego. And it frustrated Dib to heck.

"I'm getting you back on your feet, you bastard." He said quietly. "I'm not letting you give up. You want a purpose; I'll give you a purpose. You stupid alien. You've got to fight."

Watery light filled Zim's crescent-moon eyes, but it could have been from the overhead surgery lights the professor had just flicked on. But those diaphanous pink pupils were finally falling upon his own eyes, having shifted to look up.

His eyes seemed to say: _There is no battlefield here. Where are the drumbeats? There is nothing to fight for, Dib._

Dib clutched his mittened hand. "Your battlefield is right here, and the drums are your heartbeats." He wanted so badly to understand the inner mysteries within the soldier.

Zim had never been the quiet one. It just wasn't in his nature. His new sullen disposition only served to remind Dib of the Irken's broken reality, and the insurmountable losses. He wanted Zim's old authoritativeness to break out; he wanted his robustness to return. He wanted the Old Zim to come roaring back into the fray, untouched by all the corruption.

"This is still your fight, Zim. You can't give up. You never allowed me to throw in the towel. Why should I behave any differently with you?"

He waited for some final summation from Zim that would help the human to better understand him, and to see if he had truly broken through at least _one_ of Zim's towering high walls. But, if that wall had truly trembled, it remained standing true.

"Because I am not convinced you are willing to go. I know what your ultimate fear is." He waited, seeing if Zim would react. "It's losing me. It drove you to destroy Gir. It drove you to commit yourself to the black reaches of a merciless space. I mean too much to you. You were willing to give up everything for me. And you didn't do it for the promise. You did it because you've made a life here for yourself. You made a comrade out of me. Don't turn your back on it now."

The professor came over, shattering the moment. "Son," he said purposefully, looking set and ready for the hard fight ahead, "we've got to begin the procedures at once! No dallying about. I assume you've memorized the schematics in your head?"

"Yes, dad." He had studied them, and studied them until his head had become padded with lethargy from staring at the diagrams for so long. Even if he had had another two months to study them, he still wouldn't be any more ready than he was right now. He expected his dad to lead, as if he was a pioneer in an expedition to New Lands. It was an endgame situation Dib knew he would have to eventually come to terms with, if his plans to help Zim with his PAK would follow through, and it had.

So really, he could never be ready.

His father passed him a pair of surgical gloves. Dib slipped them on, feeling cold inside, like he'd just swallowed ice cubes. His father, already wearing gloves, gave the ECG screen one last look. Clara, who had not wanted to oversee the operation, walked in hesitantly, wearing one of those green aprons. She too put on gloves, and she didn't look at either of the two men. Only when she took the stethoscope from one of the units did Dib give her a hopeful wink. She smiled back, but it was dropped in the next instant.

The professor peeled back the blankets and unlaced Zim's gown to access the PAK. Its dull pink ports lights could no longer be discerned under the harsh, cold glare of the overhead surgery lights, and its tarnished metal surface underscored the collection of scratches, dents and blackened scorch runes. It may have once been perfectly oval, and perfectly shiny when Zim was new, before it was bashed about, weathering an anthology of accidents, clumsy bumps and general wear and tear. It had served Zim well, in all retrospect. For it was a manufactured edifice that had survived for a century and a half. There were few tools that man had ever made that could last so long, and under such high usage.

All the newer parts, cheaper, and no doubt inferior to the original equipment of the PAK were all laid out and labelled on a bench nearby, ready for the transition. Clara kept close to Zim whose eyes were still wedged shut, as if frightened of the next step, and having no power to do aught else but hide. She sought his mitten, held it to her face, and spoke to him, the other hand stroking the back of his head.

"Son?" His father's voice tugged him back to the task at hand. Dib gulped, and accepted the asbestos mask handed to him. He put it on. It was better to not breathe on the delicate gears and tubing inside Zim's PAK. If water erosion was the problem here, then water vapour would be on his breath, and he did not want to be pouring that all over Zim's life support. His father tugged one on too. "Let us begin."

Dib nodded, and felt his chest fill with a pressure he could barely breathe past. He wasn't ready.

The first obstacle they had to overcome was of course the removal or the circumvention of the PAK's mantle. Built to thwart most damage and to insulate and protect the delicate intricacies inside, one could not deliberately force their way in unless they had the right tools to go about the job. Careful extrication was necessary. And the PAK seemed to be built to protect itself from brute force should any enemy try and crack it open. Only Irkens knew the backdoors to their own PAKs, getting them open with the formal ease of sliding a key through a lock. The professor had thought of sliding tweezers or pliers into the small cavity to try and 'tease' the mantle open as if it was no different from opening a box. What they had not foreseen in their strict plans was Clara's minimalist approach.

"Zim. Can you be really brave for me?" She asked of him. He continued to draw in air through the mask, remaining stagnant in his comfortable inertia but the heavy lines under his eyes marked emotional strain: and the cost of living. "Soldiers can face anything, right? I bet this is nothing to you. You must have been through so much in your life, and survived it all. So this should be easy, right? All you've got to do is open your PAK. You're safe. Always safe."

Dib shook his head, and approached her. This was getting them nowhere.

Then his father cried: "It's opening! Dib, quick, the spanner!"

Dib went back round; saw with his own eyes the mantle opening up like the window of a cockpit. The two halves peeled out sideways, on joints so that they could flip back all the way to reveal the exterior rims, as well as the mechanical viscera inside. The bottom half slid down on a silent hinge.

Zim had just done them an enormous honour: something Dib would never have believed he was ever capable of doing.

Was it finally trust that had broken through? Was it purely to win Clara's challenge, falling into her gambit? Or was Zim thinking; 'what the hell?' in his own morbid way of complying with them, because it was all useless to him anyway?

It was like looking into the confusing network of a circuit grid with an alien mix of sci-fi superfluity thrown in to just amplify matters. Of course, Dib should have known straight away what he was looking at, and what all the different nodules and tubes and breakers did, having sat and stared at the schematics and diagrams long enough to store something useful in his brain. But, by glancing into the majestic aura of Zim's industrialized composition that radiated pinkly in a weakened, fading glow, everything he should have learned seemed to slip out the backdoor.

The one thing that was very clear was the evident theme of corrosion. It had saturated parts of this synthetic anatomy without remorse. Tubing that was once coated in one uniform colour was shadowed in abnormal stains, and sediments of blackened rust had accumulated up and through passageways. So much so, that these rust deposits were now incorporated into Zim's working parts, like cholesterol manifesting and solidifying in the arteries.

Attempts to clean himself of this decay must have been unsuccessful, leaving the condition unsolved. Or he foolishly might have expected some new PAK instalment to fall through the letterbox of his door, for Zim had discreetly mentioned something of the sort prior to Gir's attack.

The scans had picked up on this caustic rust, giving him and his father detailed views of the corrosion. But it still somehow looked worse when they were seeing it for real. And Dib had not been expecting the pink glow either. It pulsed faintly, like a languid heartbeat, dull and lifeless to an almost grey shade. It seemed to come from no definable source, yet appeared to be emanating from all of Zim's delicate internal functions. This led to the strong belief that every piece of Zim's PAK did something for its host, whether it be a passive function, or impassive in terms of influence and control. The vital, integral layers that involved Zim's memory banks, encoded drives and organ efficiency were the deepest parts: his life support. This delicate core was the second brain – and it was covered in a gel-like layer that the professor did not dare touch.

The old invader's engineering tools, stored deep within the PAK in their meticulous folds, would also have to be plucked out. This included his welding lasers, communicator and other things. This lightened the PAK still further, and enabled more room for the professor to adapt the PAK and make it run smoother, thus easing the strain on the integral core.

His father bent down slightly, and took a set of pliers from the bench. He moved these over to the internally stored communicator – mainly used in the past for calling upon Gir in times of need. But again before any of them could predict it, the communicator levered outwards towards them on a thin pole, making its severance easier.

Zim was manipulating his own tools from the rocky plateau of his shaky mentality, saving them the hassle. Dib did not have the luxury of time to ask him why he was being so... uncharacteristically helpful. Usually, when Zim did anything anomalous, stepping out of the benchmark of his consistency, it was purely for something maniacal and selfish; something that would later serve him in unknown ways. This unnatural compliancy worried Dib.

Dib frowned. Was it because Zim _didn't_ trust them, that he was doing this? If he gave them his armatures for easier disposal, it meant saving himself from feeling the invasive scrutiny of fingers trying to weed them out manually, right? That made better sense than thinking of it as Zim's alien willingness to help.

 _Or maybe it's because he's been in so much pain, that he just wants it to end? He's at the end of his endurance; he's done with the games, done with the masks and pretences. He knows he's at our mercy. One step from being autopsied. He's afraid of what's to come, should he live or die. So he's complying, only because he doesn't know what else to do. He can't fight. He's too weak, but to lie here and await whatever outcome we choose for him._

It was a sad thought, a sad reality. And he believed this was why Zim was so quietly conforming. Then he looked on over at Clara, saw her using the stethoscope to listen to his heart, her other hand stroking his head, talking to him so patiently and lovingly all the while.

The professor dipped in, closed the pliers over a badly frayed wire, and cut its top end clean – trying to deftly cut around the filaments inside. He accidently nipped one. Zim's left hand jerked, and a pained groan flew up his throat. It made his erect antenna flay upwards in surprise.

Dib, hovering close, and feeling like a useless third wheel, watched the delicate process as his father melded a new tube back into place. "The filaments within are connected." He said. "I accidently snipped two. So intrinsic is the connection between biological tissue, and cyborgenetic implants, that I am astounded at the perfect symbiosis of the two. I shall try to be more careful. Every dash of line, nodule and duct seems to serve some intricate purpose, connected as they all are to his nervous system."

Dib respected the fact that his father was doing his almighty hardest to get it right the first time round, even though he was still learning. It was one thing on a graph, and doing it for real on the patient. Zim's PAK was likened to a timed explosive. Snip the wrong wire, and BANG! You might accidently activate his life clock, or something else.

The professor seemed to know more or less what he was doing. But Dib was lost in translation. To him, The PAK was as alien as it could get. He had no idea how to even begin to understand what part did what, and how on Earth his father could fix what needed fixing. And it glowed! As if it harboured Zim's essence inside, and that, if something should break, it would release his spirit, like a genie from a bottle.

The professor strained over the PAK, configuring how the newer bits and pieces would adapt and fit into the device's cavity. Dib supposed it was like trying to fix an antique clock while it was still ticking.

"If this works... how long will he have to live?" Dib asked, his voice slightly muffled by the asbestos mask.

"I'm not sure at this stage. This contraption has certainly gone past its prime. Its parts are worn down, and many nodules that carry around this strange blue gel have been dented, causing the gel flow to stop. Some of it has overheated, and burnt out. I can do what I can, but it will never be the same as it once was."

Next, Professor Membrane employed a tiny drilling tool, and gave Dib a small suction device. "I'm going to begin removing the worst of the corrosion. As the rust comes off, I need you to suck it away before it settles somewhere else. All set?"

"Y-Yeah."

"All right then!"

Without the fear that would have frozen Dib to the core, Membrane proceeded as if this was just another ordinary day in the lab, leaning over a delicate experiment. He turned the drill on, and it emitted a high, keen whine. Like a dentist's drill. He began to zap against the shoreline of rust fetched hard against a nodule, scattering it into flakes. Dib routinely sucked it away, every loosened bit of debris flying up into the suction.

It was impossible to tell if they were hurting him, as gentle as they were trying to be, or if Zim was purely reacting out of fright. For he could not see what they were doing: could only feel and hear, and have his body respond to their prying at strange and surprising intervals he could not prepare for. Regardless, Zim's stress levels were increasing.

There was so much rust. It was like stripping barnacles away from a ship's infested hull. The worst amounts were tackled, the smaller deposits left alone, for the professor seemed aware of Zim's rising tension and the very sudden actuality that they had less time to work on the PAK than they had originally planned. So combing through the black and sometimes white oxidation had become a much more hurried undertaking.

"Clara, what's his current heart rate?" He called over the drilling.

"Two hundred and twelve!"

The professor continued curbing the solid lumps staining integral machinery, not letting up. Dib meticulously kept in line with his father's progress, knowing that one stray bit of fragmentation would go to parts elsewhere, and clog up something else if he did not suck it clean away.

"Professor! Professor!" Clara sounded frightened now, like a young girl lost in a forest, calling out for help, "He's getting worse! He's panicking!"

"But this shouldn't be hurting him!" Dib protested through clenched teeth behind his mask.

The professor raised the drill out of the PAK, switched it off and went round to placate the now shivery Irken. During the brief commission with the PAK, his body temperature had plummeted, despite the electric heater blanket beneath him. The professor shored a thick blanket over him, covering up the open PAK as well, forcing Dib to step back with the suction device still in his hand. Ruefully, he pulled the mask down from his mouth so that it hung around his neck. "It's all right, all right now," the professor said softly, trying to curb Zim's amalgamated terror, "Don't be afraid. Come now. Take big, deep breaths for me. That's it, little one. No need to panic. Everything's under control."

Dib tried to see past their arms, trying to see Zim.

Clara increased the heat levels of the blanket beneath by one more notch. It could go no higher. It was now on maximum.

Zim's trembling – fierce as it was – as if every demon had revisited him while they hadn't been paying attention – lessened in small, gradual doses. It was like someone had put him in a freezer for as long as sixty seconds.

"It's the sound of the drill." Clara confessed, looking at Dib and his father with equal remorse. "It's frightening him."

The professor turned to his tiniest of patients, and rubbed his shoulder under the blanket. "Zim, little one, I must reduce the layers of corrosion in your PAK device. The only way I can productively shift it is by using that drill! I know it sounds horribly loud, but I assure you that I am not going to hurt you with it. That I promise!"

Dib wasn't sure how well Zim would be able to understand anything of what they were saying, or what was going on. Maybe he regretted his PAK admittance, and was once again conflicted with thoughts of dissection. Of captivity. Of having no control.

Zim, having his eyes scrunched tight, opened his right one slowly. Who knows how many insecurities he was going through, how many fears he was being presented with from the crevasses of his own panicked-mind? For when he opened his one eye, it was filmy with tears. He swallowed several times to perhaps try and express his horrors, but he never said anything. He only whimpered.

"Just a little more. It's got to be cleaned." Clara assuaged him, stroking his head.

The professor knew he had to come to some genus of consolidation so that work could continue. It was no good trying to salvage a PAK when the Irken they were striving to save died from trauma. But it meant increasing the dose of sedation: a sedation that did not mix that well with Irken chemistry. It had been something he had wanted to avoid for the duration of Zim's recovery – if he could ever reach that stage – and now saw that it was foolish for holding out on it. Realistically, he had wanted his alien patient both awake and alert to better determine his reactions to the manual repair, in case they damaged him further by accident; such was the nature of working on something they still knew little about, and had only studied from documents and diagrams.

"Block it out for him dad." Was Dib's final input on the matter, helping to sway the professor's decision. "We need to do this quickly. It's no good if we're stopping and starting all the time with his life support open to the elements like this. If his life clock begins its countdown, all this will be for nothing."

"Very well." He slipped a dosage into the alien's catheter. Zim's right eye shut fast, and his breathing and heart rate slowed in as little as one minute. The professor made sure he was out by slapping his wrist and addressing him sharply to stir a reaction from him, and when the Irken was listless in sleep, not rousing at all to the aides, they continued their work. And so the drilling went on, much smoother and easier now, without worrying their patient.

The collection of erosion was tamed, its deposits better managed. A lot of the delicate material began to surface, as if they were unearthing fossils from rock. Tubes were uncovered, and tiny knobs and bolts. When the professor passed him the drill to access smaller deposits further inside that his bigger fingers couldn't reach, Dib really did feel like an archaeologist. It was still theoretical if repairing Zim's PAK would reverse his age, and make him young and healthy again. It was too soon to ask, way too soon, but it pressed on Dib's mind like a burning question, and as much as he feared the old Zim, with his relentless energy and cosmic ideas, he actually – really missed him.

"Uh that'll do, my boy! That'll do!" His father took the drill from him, turned it off and did the last bit of suction himself, finding any and all lasting debris. Zim's devices looked much cleaner. Of course, a lot of them still had a skin of corrosion in some places, being too far to reach, or the machinery underneath just too delicate to mess with. But all in all, they had removed about 70% of Zim's calcified deposits, which relentlessly gave Dib the impression of cholesterol.

Now, it was just the diseased parts.

The professor tweaked around, carefully easing off one piece at a time from wire follicles or nodules he had to unscrew, and replacing it with an exact duplicate. The ephemeral absence of any one piece always did something to Zim's body. When one nodule was removed, it sent Zim's claws into a spasm, as if they had unwittingly interfered with his muscular skeletal coordination, and were messing with his sync drives. Of course, this was only speculation. For all they knew, each one part that was removed messed with the real brain in Zim's head, confusing its nerve networks from the second electronic brain, and causing these nervous-system disruptions. This incessant duty, fallen to him and his dad, put daggers of cold fear through Dib's heart when he began to think that their repair work might give Zim permanent injury: like brain damage for instance. No one human had ever got this close to a PAK, much less be honour-bound to fix it. As much as the professor was smart, and as much as they had tried to gain from theory and documentation research, they still knew precious little about its practical nature, and what every piece of it did. For all Dib knew, they were fumbling about with Zim's gross motor functions, and that, if the Irken should wake up fine the next day, he would only then discover that he could no longer walk. They could even effectively make him go blind by accident.

These very real notions, all clumped together into one huge anxiety-storm, made Dib drop back, still holding onto a scalpel he had been using to pry off a tiny length of tubing. The professor distractedly gave him a look, his concentration diverted. "Son? Where are you going? We still have much to overcome!"

Now was not the time to say stupid, melodramatic things like: 'I feel sick.' But he honestly did feel sick. And awful too. For messing around with, and swapping things about in Zim's cybergenetic brain. Who knew what part of the PAK made Zim heal, for nothing in there was labelled, or coded. It was all the same grimy pale blue and pink colour, the glowing within still a slow, languid beat. An Irken might know straight off the bat, with but one lazy glance of what did what, and what thing did what for what body part. Maybe Zim's integral healing ability: the very thing that might reverse what time had done to him was within his core – the very thing that lay under a shell of gel.

"Son?" Now the professor was peering at him more anxiously than before. Clara had also raised her head, the ear cap of the stethoscope plugged into her ears. They were both looking at him.

"Sorry, I... I..." He was about to divulge the truth, ready to lay bare his torturous emotions, when his eyes skimmed over the table loaded with instruments and tools. He picked up a torch, trading it for his scalpel. "I was looking for this."

His father nodded. "I need you to attach this. It needs to be fast. It's pumping out a blue substance. It's best we don't let it spill."

Dib went back into the fray, trying his best to keep his hands from shaking.

Like mechanics attending to the needs of a car's engine, they worked on it for another twenty minutes.

It was hard to see the exact detail under all that blue gel, but Dib could see circuits and tiny, thin wires interconnecting, like nerves in the brain. Lots of metal glinted through the gel, also reminding him of the circuitry in a computer's motherboard. Little lights glowed within, sometimes dimming, sometimes brightening, like the PAK was thinking. Oftentimes, waves of pink light would flow across these wires, and Zim's left foot would twitch in response.

Then Professor Membrane came with the new PAK bypass. It was sophisticated rubber tubing that split three ways and was implanted with a regulation chip. It was meant to sidestep around the bent or burnt out parts of the PAK and carry the gel around the PAK without interruption. The gel's function was largely unknown, but it was vital to Zim's survival. Maybe the gel acted as a lubricant for the other parts to work, or it acted as a coolant, or something else entirely. Perhaps it even helped with the PAK's natural electrical conduit. So the professor meticulously started to drill the tubing and chip into the PAK's mantle to service the parts within.

What was worse; the professor was implementing _human_ instruments into Zim's PAK. Zim hated man-things. Hated human technology, calling it barbarism at its worst. And now, it was going to be a part of him, for the rest of his life. So it was quite ironic that Zim had human equipment nestled in his Irken technology that would keep him alive.

The tubing was in place, and the chip started directing the gel flow. The three-way rubber valves started to work, and the gel was moving through the parts, causing Zim's integral ports to light up again in a warm pink glow. The exterior tube was warmed by his internal blood system. And it was also glowing.

The professor leaned back, smiling.

Without Zim to do it for them, Membrane carefully began to align and refit the shell back again piece by piece from the bottom up. It was like putting 3D puzzle parts of a tortoise's shell together.

"How do you know you've done everything?" Dib asked worrisomely. He was glad it was over, and pulled off the surgical mask from his lower face.

"I just do, my son."

"You're not going to put any of his old gear back in?"

"He won't be needing them. If he wants the best out of life, he must change." It sounded like wisdom. But to Dib, it only sounded vaguely foolish. Like telling a child not to run.

The PAK was completed, each correctly placed piece slotting into the other, ensuring a tight, secure fit, as if internal locks automatically activated upon contact, ensuring a tight, reliable hold.

Finally, Zim was moved to lie on his back again, the pillows ensuring the support of his PAK. The antidote to his sedation was administered into his bloodstream.

It was done. It was actually done.

But Dib didn't feel all that proud. There was no telling what they had improved, until Zim woke. No telling what they had done. Or had made worse. All they had to go on was computer results from the blood analysis. The professor took a new sample from Zim's arm within the first ten minutes after the operation.

Zim lay with his eyes shut. Dib waited by his side, tense with that ever-present worry he had never truly shaken since Zim's collapse at his home.

 _You have some strange tubing in your PAK now. Fuck, you have tubing everywhere._

 _I'm sorry. But I wanted to save you. Is this all worth it? I want you to be happy. Did I go too far?_

Dib imagined some metamorphosis to take place, should the PAK be abstained from the worst of its deterioration, like something out of the movies.

Zim's white skin colourisation did not improve, and neither did his crevassing wrinkles or the inflammation in his joints that were still hot to the touch when Dib felt them under the blankets. Even the savagery marked deep into his chest did not spontaneously heal over.

Dib was a little put out by this. He imagined that once some of the PAK's parts had been salvaged and repaired, Zim would get younger again. His wrinkles would fade, his aching joints would disappear, and he would be the young, viscous invader he remembered. But that did not happen. Whatever Professor Membrane had achieved, Zim looked no younger. The tubing, partly translucent, sluiced around with blue liquid outside the PAK's exterior shell like some unearthly intravenous that looped back inside. The bypass was a success. Or so, his father kept telling him.

" _The bypass consists of a cable that'll send electrical liquids to his PAK to help it function. It is what he needs."_

Nothing would ever be the same again. There was no coming back from this. Dib supposed that it had been like this since the obliteration of Zim's home.

Dib blinked, noticed how dry his eyes felt.

At a little past ten, one hour after the operation, the rain picked up outside. It sounded like someone was dropping hundreds of pebbles onto the roof of the lab. Behind Dib, on a table, were about eight used coffee mugs. He hadn't eaten, and had purely lived off coffee for fuel. Clara had tempted him numerous times with all his favourite foods. But Dib simply had no appetite. The only things he did consume, other than more coffee, were painkillers. He had them every four hours, popping them out of their blister-packets as if they were sweets, and downing them with the help of hot, sugary caffeine.

Under the musical duress of the storm outside, the wind thumping against the brickwork as if it was testing the building for weaknesses, Zim slept on. Dib, who had not taken his eyes off him once, sucked in a breath: his body tense with anticipatory fear. What had become of his Irken? What mental prowess was retained after their attempts to save him? Had they switched around parts of his brain, or what? WHAT? Not knowing killed Dib inside.

"Son?" It was his father. He had entered the room looking solemn.

Dib turned, said a very shaky, "Y-Yeah?"

"What you've done for him is admirable. But he is a creature of intelligence, and of free will. We must allow him to make one final decision."

He did not like his father's new tone. "Dad? Where are you going with this?"

"We must allow him to choose. That way, you can both be happy." He sat down beside his son, and told him the plan.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Ugh. Getting Zim on the same page is like trying to ask a mountain to move over. Hope you enjoyed that, dear readers. Managed to shorten 20 pages down to 13. PHEW!


	38. Soldier's Apotheosis

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

 **Warnings: UPDATED**

Zim Angst. Language and distressing scenes.

 ** _Normal italics where applicable are Zim's thoughts._**

 ** _Italics with '...' apostrophes on them are Dark Zim's thoughts._**

* * *

 **A/N:**

This chapter and the next one is dedicated to **Piratemonkies64.** Also known as **Slothfantasy** on Tumblr! Please put your hands together for her! She has singlehandedly made an audio recording of Saving Zim's first 2 chapters! I thought one was brilliant enough; a dream come true! And I was not prepared for the second audio recording! I may die soon with love and excitement for this goddess of a person! And she really inspired me to get out these TWO chapters early! I'm still working on the 'thank you' sketches for the wonderful 500 review you've gifted me with! Plus a oneshot that I've nearly finished! (ha, sorta!)

Anyway, please, you MUST check out **piratemonkies** youtube channel! It's there to listen to! It's like a whole fresh take on the early chapters! She's done it with such tender dedication, adding in SOUND EFFECTS! I know RIGHT? And ambience! And...and MUSIC OMG! I am going to have a heart attack and I don't care! Because I am still so hyper about it! Have a listen to the chapters, you won't regret it!

-x-

I had to post two chapters at once. I wrote them together. Back to back. I cannot see one without the other. It's basically one chapter - Soldier's Apotheosis split into 2 parts.

 **RissyNicole** \- the submission for the deleted part you wanted has been added!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 38 (44): Soldier's Apotheosis**

 _'I've been believing in something so distant as if I was human  
And I've been denying this feeling of hopelessness  
In me_

 _All the promises I made just to let you down  
You believed in me, but I'm broken  
I have nothing left_

 _And all I feel is this cruel wanting  
We've been falling for all this time  
And now I'm lost in paradise_

 _As much as I'd like the past not to exist it still does  
And as much as I'd like to feel like I belong here  
I'm just as scared as you'  
_

Lost in Paradise - Evanescence

-x-

 _'I can't change who I am.'_

Lacrymosa - Evanescence

"Master! Master!"

Zim lean claws danced on the keys of his mainframe console; seeking out answers to certain life problems as if his predicament was just another one of his computer simulations. "What is it Gir?" Though the robot's shrill voice was hard to ignore, he did not turn around, or even salute Gir's presence with any antenna movement. "When I'm at my computer, it means that I'm working."

"But Master, you should come see this! It's reaaaal bad!"

Zim sighed heavily, and finally cast his eyes at his synthetic child. "What did you do this time? Let me guess, the fridge is empty? You've completely eaten everything haven't you, including my joint cream?"

"No, no nothing like that!" Gir looked worried. The colour of his cyan eyes seemed to grow brighter whenever he got upset.

Zim looked at the problems listed on screen, prickling with irritation at being interrupted. He didn't want to leave work half finished, didn't want to leave the mainframe at all in case some new equation to the problem would present itself if he stayed. But Gir's unnerving franticness helped Zim come to a decision as he idled with uncertainty. "Very well. Show me."

Gir took him by the hand, and led him out of the room.

-x-

Zim awoke most suddenly, his eyes flying wide open, surprised that he was not walking along sterile, warm corridors humming with activity, being led by Gir. It had been so real! He had just been there! He even remembered the clear-cut data on the computer screen, could still hear the whisper of Gir's feet as he padded along in front.

Then every sprung nerve and muscle sunk down into disappointed rest when he rediscovered the stagnancy of realization.

It had been a dream. Just a dream. And, as the dream faded, spiralling loose until he could barely remember what it was that he had dreamt, he felt the threatening approach of loneliness.

So he lay there, not reacting to anything.

Not wanting to react to anything.

Too often from the prison of invalidism he jumped awake from dreams, and Clara was always there to soothe his terror when he wasn't sure which reality he was in. A hand would reach out and dry the tracks of those long-shed tears that had dried on his cheekbones.

He looked at this elaborate room filled with human equipment and technology. He had no liking for any of it, and hated the revalidation of it every time he opened his eyes to be bombarded with it anew.

From the margins of this inner solitude he realized he was wearing a frock- _thing._ Clara changed him regularly into these alien clothes. Not a uniform or something that upheld dignity. No. Today it was a brightly coloured _thing:_ soft, cuddly nightwear for invalids. That _she_ had dressed him in. He thought about it and still didn't know what to make of it.

He hated the dry, plastic stink of the mask he had to breathe with. Several times upon waking, he peeled off the nasty smelling, rubbery oxygen mask, (which wasn't so easy to do when you had great fat mittens for hands), only to find it back on him again after he had woken.

So he pried it off as much as limited energy would allow, and left the ugly thing to lie by his head like it was the shredded translucent skin of some beast.

Zim grew tired of languidly staring from slits at one area of the white ceiling past the branching forest of plastic tubing, and he looked to his right, at the bank of computer screens by his bed. He was compelled to hear the procession of his synced heartbeats pinging on the ECG, bound as he was to wires and tubes that only anchored him down to the personal summary of defeat.

Even though his darkly rimmed eyes were almost closed, his breaths sluggish, his brain was busily working away. Neurons were firing; seeking out the receptive parts of his PAK, and discovering dead links; dead pathways that had been working before, he was certain. He let his cognitive neural sweep do the leg work, intrusively searching his PAK's core drives and basic functions to greet new damage down there, and to be greeted with the gaping absence of his PAK legs, his tools, and all the other benefits that came with being an Irken soldier.

He felt the alien intrusion of human equipment down there, as a survivor might feel the cold, numb infringement of metal stints in their broken arms or legs. They did not answer to him, these foreign parts. They were silent, dead, cold components, having no telepathic or psionic qualities that linked back to his brain.

He was scared of these new parts.

Scared too, of living without the defences he had been born with.

But, from this terrible freedom, he floated in a void where his former agonies could no longer touch him.

The burden of being a soldier had been taken – removed.

Lifted.

 _They... they fixed my PAK..._ He thought, clenching on the idea: the possibilities of what that might mean.

Another voice, lurid with insanity only laughed at him and at his insensible conceptions. _'They didn't fix it! They butchered it!_ _It doesn't do anything now, other than keep your pitiful remains alive for awhile!'_

Zim shut his eyes tight, but there was no escaping his own mind. _I don't hurt anymore._

' _So what? Look at what you've become! What they've done to you! They went into your brain, and took stuff out! Humans did this! HUMANS! You're not Irken anymore! You're a thing! A useless, ugly maimed THING!'_

He tried to shift his body so that he could flop over and lay on his other side, as if, in doing so, he could move himself away from these screaming thoughts. Then the strangled, high-pitched coughing started. His chest was boggy with fluids; fluids he unable cough out. He couldn't even sit up to allay them. He tried by pushing a shivery elbow against the cotton of the mattress, but the nasty, hacking coughs drove him back down again. Someone was there – always there – and strong, trusting hands lifted him up and patted his back.

Zim swallowed. It encouraged the fiery coughs to worsen like he'd just breathed down food.

"It's okay!" Said a voice through the discordant racket of his coughs, "It's good that you're coughing! Helps get the fluids out! Here, you can drink this once you've got your breath back. It's simple orange juice."

Zim managed to swallow without igniting another long series of hacking coughs as he looked up at the human from conspicuously narrowed eyes. It was the human creature called Clara. Her voice had guided him through his dreams many a time, as a lighthouse guided a ship lost in the dark.

As his limited focus sharpened now and then, he saw that she was holding out a Styrofoam cup with a straw as if he was a perfectly willing, perfectly obeying subject. Then she lifted away his breathing mask. Strong scents hit him, few of them pleasant.

Without his mechanical defences, he did not know how to hide, and could not move away or use any other tactic he had always fallen upon when he was in a situation he didn't like. His movements too, usually so graceful and synchronized, despite the rusting of his joints, had acquired an uncoordinated and inelegant aspect, and he felt like a marionette without the aid of strings.

His eye clung to her, as if she was the rope for which he could cling to.

"Zim? Hey. It's going to be okay." She soothed the frowns away on his forehead. Zim's focus dawdled on her for a few moments out of eyes that were glazed with that all encompassing look of abject misery and confusion.

His claws flexed within the tough fabric of the material they were encased in. He narrowly looked down at his hands swathed in mittens, wondering why he was wearing them. It was like wearing great big oven mitts.

His PAK had been butchered. They had ensnared him with wires.

To say that all this was highly degrading didn't even cut it. No words had yet to be invented that purely described his embarrassment.

Clara's honey-hued eyes watched him warmly, trying to instil reassurance into him. But when she tried to get him to drink, tried to force that straw into his mouth like the last time and the time before that, he tilted his chin away from her. All he had to do was bunch away, and harden his jaws.

He heard her speak to him, but her words had no meaning. And he didn't speak back. He hadn't the energy or the spirit to enunciate a thing. He was caught between waves of rage, and floods of tears from the despair he tried to contain.

She put the antagonistic drink down and shifted him back into raised pillows so that he could view the little room from an upright position. This way he could see the door opposite. It was closed. Then Clara meticulously made sure he was all wrapped up, and that he was warm.

"Hey, hey look at this!" Now she was showing him something else. He opened his eyes wider, tried to will his focus to work. Clara wrapped an arm around his littleness so that he could melt where he sat; shivering despite the thick, fleecy warmth of the clothing he was wearing. Behind his right antenna, he could hear that new, scary burble of liquid sloshing at his PAK as if someone had left a faucet running. He wasn't sure what it was. But he could always hear it.

Clara was showing him one of those Samsung iphones or ipads. He wondered why she was showing him it, and why it was so important that he look. He wanted to slip behind doors of heavy sleep again, and allow a veil to shroud his consciousness rather than deal with whatever the hell she expected of him.

She was showing him a photo of a house. On its second storey was a balcony. On its roof, a telescope.

"See? You recognise it, don't you? It's Dib's house."

 _So?_ His right antenna twitched as he questioned her.

Clara was now showing him photos of inside the house, such as the hallway and lounge and the garden, and then she showed him a set of pictures of one particular room. This room's walls were soft, comely lavender. There was a desk loaded with raw computer equipment as if someone had raided a laboratory of its best paraphernalia, and then, in one of the photos, there was an open suitcase full of his stuff. He recognized the homely icon of his Empire labelled on some of it. In another photo was a bed quilted in dark purples and pinks, and on it sat a floppy plush doll: of Gir.

"This is going to be your room!" She was saying. "You can tinker about. And Dib says he keeps an old ship in his garage. Something about it being called a Tak ship? I wasn't sure what he meant, but he said it's an alien vessel. I want to see it for myself! It's all yours!"

The smallest of frowns creased Zim's pale forehead. _Tak's old ship? Dib still has that heap of junk?_

Then: _they want me to live... with them?_

' _You'll be a prisoner, fool!'_ Came that bitter retort from the far reaches of his crumbling sanity. ' _You'll be their little, LITTLE pet! How cute! You may as well wear a dog collar. It'll suit you.'_

He turned away from the phone and nuzzled his face into her arm. He didn't want to see anymore.

"Zim, honey, you've got to drink. It's just a little juice. We need to get your spooch working."

Zim groaned spitefully when he felt her tip him away from her arm, and felt that invasive straw slip between his lips. He clamped his teeth down, forbidding it from going any further. She tried to work her way around this wall, trying to poke the straw through a breach in his defences. There was a slight gap at the back of his mouth, where his molars were, but when she found this opening, he angled his head away as best he was able.

So again, she surrendered, and put the cup down again beyond his foggy field of sight.

He was strangely shivery with hot flushes, and sometimes he was shivery with icy cold chills.

 _Clara. Clara's kind. Dib. Dib's my comrade in arms. Membrane. Membrane is..._

 _Enemies. They're all ENEMIES!_

 _Nothing can break me._

 _Nothing._

 _I exist only to kill._

 _I exist only to kill._

 _The Empire made me._

 _But they've...they've removed all my universal aches. Haven't they?_

' _Haha! You're still OLD! What use are you now? As soon as you die, they'll autopsy your remains!'_ Said the cruel part of him above all other voices. _'There's no gracious noble ending for you! No soldier's apotheosis! You're but scrap! Nothing but scrap!'_

Zim shut his eyes fast, trying to run from the screaming realisms he'd rather not face, not yet, not so soon.

 _I don't know how to live without being a soldier._

 _I don't know what role I am to play._

 _Who to be._

 _Got to adapt! Got to stay in control!_

 _And I CAN'T!_

He was being unmasked from all his previous pretences.

He wanted to hide, and couldn't hide. Wanted to run, and couldn't even gather the strength to crawl. He could not censor the memory of the moment when Gir had come undone: when all his intricate parts that had made him come apart at the seams. And Zim had stood over them, the boundless sadness forcing him to kneel at Gir's grave, as he felt his own life come to ruin.

Fathers did not kill their children.

He felt unbalanced. Lurching through a spaceless void with no control. No dashboard to anchor his plots. No steering to see him through the debris of his ruination. He gazed down at his mitten hands through heavily slanted eyes, and felt homesick. Wallowing in futility was never his thing. Yet here he lay, wallowing in it all the same.

' _You should have killed them. Killed them all when you first arrived at this speck of DUST!'_

To ascend beyond the threat of madness he opened his eyes and looked wildly for comfort. Clara was there, hushing him tenderly, one hand stroking his face. The voices, like bats, scattered beneath her kindness.

He was going mad.

They had cauterized him by removing his gear, thus plucking apart any sanity worth saving.

Then Clara was speaking softly to him, and her words, gentle and caring, washed away the bad voices warring in his head.

"I remember being left out in the rain." She said, her eyes taking on a paler tint, and her gaze was mainly unfocused, as if her real attention was within. "I remember standing there, waiting for my parents to come back and take me home. I must have stood and waited there until the sun went down, and still, I stood, not knowing where to go, and afraid they'd never find me if I moved from that spot. All I had was my ragdoll, and a school bag full of books. They said we were going on a trip."

Zim, having no experience on parents, knew enough to know that they were role models, or 'leaders' for human children. And that being abandoned by such must have been a low strike indeed. He swallowed, feeling a sudden swelling of remorse. He knew what it felt like, to be left when all others had turned their backs on him. So he had turned round, and turned his back on all of them. He had never since looked back.

"By the time the police came and found me, I had pneumonia. I was stuck in the hospital for two weeks surrounded by passing strangers. Every day that went by, I was sure my parents would come running to see me, so worried, with love in their eyes. They never came back for me, Zim. The police never found them. The only clue they had was when my parents used their passports to get on a plane bound for Sicily. That was twenty five years ago. I was six years old."

Zim wondered where she was going with this; wondered what on Irk it had to do with him. Even so, her tale of woe rang true with him on that subterranean level he daren't ever look at: the one so deep, he often forgot it was there, and yet it had shaped him: defined him from day one of his existence. He was mostly targeted due to his absurd height and solitude, and was penalised for it daily. During his Elite training, and for every Irken that he passed, he caught circuitous whispers.

' _Look, it's that runt training again!'_

' _He'll never amount to anything short of cannon fodder! That Zim's such a waste of resources the academy could do better without.'_

' _Hey, isn't he defective?'_

' _He's accident prone, that Zim. He'll never become an Elite. Should have been a table drone.'_

They'd pushed him around, and he'd pushed them right back, getting steadily angrier and angrier as he grew older and his peers grew taller. He could never understand why he had been ostracized from the beginning, and though it was a constant fact of his existence within his own kind, he had always chosen to ignore it. Instead he had focused on conquering his enemies, and Irkens were not to be spared from his cold vengeance. Now, abandoned on planet Earth by no less than his own hand, he had given up. And Dib had reached in, and pulled him up out of his chosen grave.

"What... w-what happened?" He found himself asking in a croaky, feathery-light whisper. He had taken the bull by the horns all his life, and taken the violent path. But innocent humans did no such thing. They seemed to accept defeat, and live with it willingly. He wanted justice on Clara's behalf, that much he knew.

Clara looked at him. Startled by his voice. At the suddenness of the sound he had willingly chosen to make.

His muteness was breaking, and she seemed to forget what it was she was saying, such was her surprise. But, instead of scaring him back into silence by accident, she hurriedly continued.

"I...I was placed in an orphanage."

Reflecting back on her younger years seemed to lessen her softness, Zim noticed, as if, by remembering these hard times, a grain of spite remained for all the wrongs her parents had ever done to her.

"I didn't even get to go home to pick up my things. During my stay in St. John's hospital, the police had seized the house as evidence for clues. And the sisters who took me in didn't think it right that I should go back anyway."

It hurt her, deep inside, Zim could tell. Exposing this story to him was very hard. It was more than possible that she hadn't even told Dib this. She, like him, had kept things close to her chest, revealing very little about herself, in case of ridicule or shame.

Normally, he would not care for her at all, or her background. She was just another common human, in a sea of people he had intended to conquer. Broken and entangled in disease, he had been soothed by her strange maternity, and felt a frugal sense of attachment that was steadily growing. There was a very small, fleeting moment when he was a smeet that he had wanted to be loved, and held by his Irken Matriarch: his natural mother.

But his ancestral expectations had been affronted by the mechanical forges of Irken military progression, and such a family unit no longer, and could ever, exist. He had had to learn early on that being raised by a parent was impossible, and he had had to sever his ties to such feelings long since. Now an attachment had been forming ever since she'd come to visit him at his base, alone.

She continued with difficulty, as if the telling of her past placed a great weight upon her. "I remember being visited by many aspiring new parents looking to pick out children as if they were looking into the bars of a zoo, picking a pet. It was degrading. Every time we had visits, all the children had to dress in their best clothes, and be on their best behaviour. We had to 'be busy' and make it look like we had talent. So one of us would be painting, or reading, or playing piano, frightened of being deemed 'worthless' if we practised nothing of the sort. I was in the orphanage for six years, Zim. By then I had learned to rely on myself. To prepare for everything. I started stealing, fretful I'd find myself out on the streets again with nothing. So, when I lived with my new stepparents, who only took me in because they had recently lost a daughter of their own, I stole from them too. I hated people for a long time. I struggled to put my trust in anybody. I don't know what you're going through, but I know it hurts. And I know what it feels like when you lose your home. You lose faith in yourself. I've learnt that it's too easy to hold onto anger and regret. And regret is little more than a cold, dark cage. And it's a very lonely cage."

Zim looked away for a moment, suddenly feeling probed. She seemed to know him to an unnerving degree. If she was expecting a trade-off of his own secrets, his own background, then she would be disappointed. He did not work like that. He did not reward those who pried, and he did not want her to assume anything of him. But, he also could not hate her. Not anymore. Irkens did not forgive. Nor did they forget. However, in the face of things, and after having learnt many strange and bewildering human behaviours and emotions, he would allow her this one reprieve. He would forgive her.

"Did you...like... your... step-parents?" He asked softly, evading her indirectness towards his own troubles and hoping in recompense that he had asked her a valid question. He still felt foully out of his own depth when socially conversing with humans.

"No." Clara replied. "I tolerated them. I used them, kind of like a resource. They wanted me to be their little daughter. They expected me to be someone else. Someone I could never be. When I was fourteen I broke a classmate's nose – she was complaining about her pretty little life, and her pretty little family, and I just lost it."

Zim watched her readily, the wrinkles deep under his eyes. He curled the mittens at his chest, herding the blankets tighter around his thin bones. He couldn't repress the feverish chills that made him rattle.

He tried to listen out for the voices in his head, but for now they were silent.

"How are you still so cold?" She rested a hand on his sweaty forehead, and then looked to something beyond his littleness. Maybe she was looking at his ECG heart patterns, or at something else, something just as vital. But really he just wanted her to continue.

 _I lost it too. But I didn't punch a little foolish girl child. I killed dozens - no – hundreds of Irkens. And I issued commands in that battle mech before laughing. Laughing at them all. To see them running made me so..._

"...cold. Here. This should help." She shored up another blanket on top of his many other layers. He was sweating through the soft, velvety new nightwear she had made especially for him, and was too embarrassed to say anything.

She went on with her story, and this made him relax again.

"I learnt about animals and how to treat and care for them on my stepparent's farm, and I had a roof over my head, but nothing was really ever my own. I could not love them. Nor did I try. They were nice people in their own way, but we were never close. When they found out I was stealing from them, they reported my unseemly conduct to the police, who detained me in a youth detention centre known as Juvenile Hall for a few days. I had stolen hundreds of dollars from them. Things that I could sell, like wristwatches, phones and jewellery. It lumped me with a criminal record. As soon as I was out, I used what money I had and moved into an apartment, and got a job as a vet trainee, but all I ever did there was muck out and dispense medication. With my criminal record I couldn't move up in the profession. So I decided to be a paranormal investigator to get a degree in Zoology and Mythology. They hired me straight away, and didn't care about my muddy records. I could finally be what I had set out to be; I could be a biologist, or apply my skills to natural conservation. And that's when I met Dib. And then I met you."

Zim found it very difficult to believe that a sensitive, polite human girl could ever be pushed to commit any kind of crime.

She seemed to be happier, now that she had confessed to him. "I did it for survival. I did it because I could still see myself as the little girl, standing out in the rain with nothing but a few books and a doll, left all alone in a city I didn't know. And I never wanted to be that girl again. Alone. With nothing. And I never want you to be like that. I want you to have everything, Zim. A home. Love. A family."

Zim cocked his head at her, not quite sure what she was offering. He was still too new to such human affinity. And he was still too unfamiliar with what he actually wanted.

"Just think about what I've said." Clara added gently. "I haven't even told Dib yet that I have a criminal record, though I knew I should have done ages ago. But, like you, I'm frightened of abandonment; and I've struggled to find the right moment to tell him."

He was silent. Losing Gir, and losing his home had burnt out all of his fuses, and, without them, he felt infirm, and old, having no stepladder to shore him up to his next level of anger, or ardent passion, or his usual zealous spades of energy. He just half sat, half lay there, feeling crestfallen. Perhaps hearing of Clara's story reminded him too much of his own, and was aggrieved by it all the more sharply.

To accept their love, and their kinship was a little too hard for him to realize right now. He did not understand it.

Clara spooned his shivery body into a hug when she saw the rising conflict on his face.

"The professor's coming to see you very soon." She whispered into his right antenna. "He's going to let you be the judge and jury of your own future. You get to decide. And... and if you choose to leave us... I'm... I'm really, really going to... to miss you."

He felt her hold his old bones close, felt her arms grip him tight, and then he heard her crying. His confusion spiked. He did not know what to think. What to say to her.

Human tears he understood least of all, but it unearthed a change in him, and it allowed the spades of his wrath to crumble and fall like weathered old stones tumbling from an old castle made of ill mortar.

The flashes of the old life he had wanted to lead... had they been so ill-conceived? What had he really wanted? What had he really desired?

He wanted to win. Even if the victory was always an empty one. It had never brought him happiness. It had never stopped him from trying again, of course, hoping this new victory would make him feel like he was worth something. But he had ended up chasing his own shadow, howling for a victory that would never be.

Gir on the other hand, little, insignificant Gir, had taught him a great many things of far greater importance than missions or his leaders or his numerous objectives would never teach: that life was precious. That things mattered. Not everything was a contest. Not everything was a simulation built for conquest. He was a creature that lived and breathed.

And he could be free, if he wanted to be.

His throat constricted.

He was made to follow orders. Irkens did not choose to live life freely. They had no idea on where even to start. Because living without a cage around him was far scarier than the cage itself. He could not cope. Every little crumb on his path had been a directive: an order. Without that little next crumb to follow, he'd only get lost.

 _'Not everything can be fixed after all, you little shit.'_ Whispered the things inside. The voices were like a foul wind - always blowing - _screaming_ \- against him.

He snuggled into her chest, allowing himself this measure of comfort, wondering what his last directive – this choice- would be. He wanted anything now, to be rid of his own voices.


	39. Homecoming

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 **Summary:**

When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless.

When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear.

 **Disclaimer:**

I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau.

 **Warnings:**

Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes.

 ** _Normal italics where applicable are Zim's thoughts._**

 ** _Italics with '...' apostrophes on them are Dark Zim's thoughts._**

* * *

 **A/N:**

' **Zim always has two sides to him, like a coin. You never know which side is going to reveal itself.'**

Again, this chapter is wholesomely dedicated to **Piratemonkies64!** Thank you thank you! I listened to the youtube audios again - both of them - on my TV this evening. It was such luxury! Just... the way you do the effects, and the tone of them... ah! The feels, they get me every time!

-x-

And thanks to **BirdNerd03** for inspiring me with your little Zimmy's dinosaur pjs! They make their debut in this chapter! :)

(I had to post two chapters at once. I wrote them together. Back to back. I cannot see one without the other. It's basically one chapter - Soldier's Apotheosis split into 2 parts.)

 **Edit**

 **This chapter was literally crawling with mistakes even though I read through it so many aching times. So hopefully they're all corrected! *keels over***

* * *

 **CHAPTER 39 (45): Soldier's Apotheosis Part 2**

 **(Homecoming)**

 _'In my field of paper flowers_  
 _And candy clouds of lullaby_  
 _I lie inside myself for hours_  
 _And watch my purple sky fly over me_

 _Don't say I'm out of touch_  
 _With this rampant chaos, your reality_  
 _I know well what lies beyond my sleeping refuge_  
 _The nightmare I built my own world to escape.'_

 _Imaginary - Evanescence_

-x-

 _How can you see into my eyes like open doors?_  
 _Leading you down, into my core_  
 _Where I've become so numb, without a soul_  
 _My spirit's sleeping somewhere cold_  
 _Until you find it there, and lead it, back, home_

 _Bring me to Life - Evanescence_

In the undercurrents of his thoughts, his mind spoke back at the whispering darkness, and created companions amongst the confused pain of losing Gir. Sometimes he'd talk in his sleep, going through the motions of his plans, his work day, to whoever would listen. Sometimes he would talk to his Dib, other days it would be Gir, and, at other times it would be a reinvention of himself as if he was standing alongside a mirror.

His other self would grin, and his darkly lit red eyes would harbour such malice that Zim often grew afraid of this presence, and he would step out of his dreams with a flinching cry, jerking to the upheavals of his own shivers. Someone was always there in the cryptic low light of the room, patting him gently, and talking to him soothingly as if he was little more than a smeet.

He'd relax moments after, his dark mind brightening with comfort, and he'd sleep soundlessly for a few hours, the nightmares not even detectable on his radar. Yet they always persisted, so raw was the drama of losing his base; the one thing that balanced his self beliefs, but they were fading, gradually, in their assortments of despair. For his comfort in the waking world was paramount.

He awoke in the evening all snuggled and warm in knitted blankets – seven hours he had slept - seven hours since Clara had changed his bandaging, and told him that he had a choice of something final. He looked for her. She wasn't there, and he started to moan for her – for anyone. The chorus of voices would return, surely they would, and bring with them a black anxiety he would not be able to surface from.

The professor came to him looking sombre in that stunningly awful white lab coat. And he was so stunningly tall. Zim looked warily up at him, shivering despite himself. "Hush now." The aged man said. There was some warmth in the tone, as if he was comforting a small child who had seen a glimpse of something scary. "Everything is fine! Just fine!"

 _The professor._

The harbinger to Zim's current doom. And was also, paradoxically, the panacea to his pain. This man showed a common trait with that of his annoying son. They both were unable to let things be, and meddled and messed with things they had no right messing and meddling with.

Zim did not whether to growl weakly at the man who held such meddlesome power, or to simply lie there, ignore him, and remain silent.

Regardless of how he thought of him now, the professor's intelligence was one of the few things that alarmed him. How could a common human being know so much? Rationalise so much? The man held little regard for emotional opinions, as did Zim. The old Elite still remembered how he had chastised the man's clutter on his desk some 20 years back, and how terribly he arranged his machines. Since then, the professor had adapted his station into 'folding' technology, and all his computers flipped up and away for easy storage, like Zim's ones did in his base, once upon a time.

The professor brought up a chair – the one with the squeaky wheel – and pushed it forwards so that it was by his bed where there was less tubing that habitually got in the way like jungle vines. He sat down with a clip chart in his hands, a stethoscope upon his broad shoulders as if he was quite happy to play doctor.

He looked over the notes, his eyes hiding behind those strange goggles.

Maybe the aged scientist expected some congratulations for the subterfuges on his PAK. A 'thank you' of some kind. So Zim battened down more tightly on his silence, and then felt the anxiety pressing forwards, like a tensed predator readying to snatch him up. He was so very fearful and had no idea why.

The professor looked at the fluctuating waves on the ECG. Then he looked at him. "I'm surprised and incredibly glad to see you conscious! Miss. Clara said you were able to talk to her! That's remarkable progress! Remarkable! I had a fear that you'd suffer cerebral haemorrhaging. But you're very much awake. In case my daughter-in-law hasn't said so, your PAK operation was successful, to a great degree. I just have to make sure there aren't any latent complications from the procedure. So I'm going to ask you to follow some simple instructions!"

Zim cast his eyes away from the professor temporarily to locate any sign of Dib, or Clara. There was no one else present. It made him feel alone, which in turn made his inner dread grow. Why weren't they here?

He had hoped to see his PAK legs too. What had the savages done with them? Where had they been stored?

"Let's help you out a little bit, shall we?" The professor's big, gloved hands shored down some of the protective blankets to reveal his deep-seated gauntness, and the soft, dark blue pjs Clara had changed him into. Emblazoned across were the fabric were little green or red or blue dinosaurs. Then those huge hands lifted him up a little to get him sitting upright. It made his head feel lightheaded. Then the tall man arranged some pillows, and sat back, looking satisfied.

"Can you move your right arm for me, please?" He then asked of him. Zim did so. His bones were always creaking, like rusty hinges: old body trying to sustain the weight of his years. "Ah, yes, very good! A little stiff still, aren't we? Now try the same with your left. Uhuh. Very good. Now, can you feel me putting pressure on this joint?"

Once Zim had slowly lowered his arm, the man was pushing the point of his finger into the Irken's hip. It was not hard or painful. He was merely checking Zim's pressure responses, and if his brain was picking up on them as he tested for paralysis.

Zim nodded.

"Excellent!" The professor sounded very chuffed. This went on a little while, and Zim endured the instructions as best he could, lest Membrane interpreted his laziness for an actual problem.

Next, the man got out a little torch from one of his many deep pockets. Zim traced every one of the human's movements with careful discernment, a habit he had picked up since his early Academy training days. Like a gunslinger, he picked everything up. Very little escaped his attention. "Now, follow this light with your eyes. Okay. Good!" Zim followed the harsh blob of light for a few seconds more, then looked away, blinking heavily. He was starting to get very irritated with him and his meddling. "No, no," the professor persisted, "you must follow my instructions! I have to double check my calculations before I can assess if the PAK bypass has been a success or not! Now, don't look at me like that!"

Zim mildly shook his head, signalling that he'd had enough.

He still really wasn't sure what to think of his man, this human being who had erased all decay from his PAK. From his deep, telepathic links, he could feel the new plastics in there, and common Earth metals that did not give him the same boon the Irken materials did. And ever since waking from the operation, he had always heard that slurping liquid sound, as if something was constantly moving – being flushed round and round.

His silence was obviously displeasing the scientist. "Have you been in much pain? You can tell me." The human asked. There was a long measure of silence except for the habitual pinging heartbeats, some of which dropped too early, or too late, such was the predicament of Zim's deep-seated arrhythmias that the professor was still trying to ameliorate. "Any discomfort at all?"

This pause was even longer.

Zim kept his focus on the blankets huddled around his abdomen. "I see. You don't want to say. That's okay, I can abide. For now. Let's see. Uh! Yes."

He took something else out of his pocket, and held it out in his hand: something small and metallic; its edges glinting vividly from the red evening sunny rays shining through the partly open window.

The professor leaned closer and said: "I found this during my primary investigations upon your metallic PAK device – on the underside of its mantle no less! No rock ever goes unturned! I believe it is of Irken origin, though its carbon dating does not match that of your PAK. The CPU circuits are burned out, from an influx of electricity, I would wager."

Zim peered anxiously at it, already losing interest. Yes, it was of Irken origin, that much he could gather. Every blade of machinery, every scrap of technology that was his he would always recognise as a craftsman might recognise the beauty of his own work behind a shop window no matter how many years it had been since last he made it. Regardless, he knew from his standard training what he was looking at.

The lip of purple running around its edges was distinct, as was the curious, glossy pattern on its cover: gleaming like the swirly magnetic glow of oil you'd find on a sunny day. Encryptions of Irken symbols were weaved meticulously on its circuits, and, though tiny, it contained huge amounts of data, and destructive capabilities that the data supplied.

It was a patented microchip for enemy warships. To be attached remotely. If the enemy warship should generate enough energy to open fire at their opposition, overload their own shields or suffer a faulty power surge, then the implanted CPU's effect would come into full swing. Like nanobots eating away at data, the CPU would send a virus to every computer onboard, and shut down all modulators and instruments that connected to an intelligent system. It was the electrical equivalency of the arms race between factions. Shutting down ships with barely any effort. Then you could board the ship, rip the crew apart, and steal it as your own, or just blow it into the next galaxy.

So how did it end up on _his_ PAK?

"How did it get there?" The professor asked casually, being a firm believer of cause and effect, and that there was always an explanation to everything.

He was lucky his own PAK had not been crippled, for the effect had been utilized. A dark band of corrosion had settled over its wavy, purplish design, foretelling that it had been used, its chips having burnt out to perform its one powerful function. And such things had to be triggered. His PAK did not have the capabilities needed to trigger it, for warships carried greater uses of energy that predestined the CPU's activation. There had been only the one thing...

 _The EMP._ He thought. Feeling a ghost brush past him.

The professor made one of his patented frowns.

The electrical magnetic pulse across town in February would have been enough to trigger its dormant capabilities: ensnaring anything within range of about 4 nautical miles.

Gir.

He had been standing right beside Zim at the time of the blackout, and his drives may have been damaged, upsetting his behavioural and memory units with ease. It was all coming together; like seeing a map come to light through the fog: showing him places he had never seen before.

Zim glared down at the chip on the professor's palm, now seeing it as a source of unholy evil. He raised his arm of bone, and swiped it out at the man's hand with a mitten, eyes shut. He didn't even see the thing fly from the bed. It bounced twice, clicking hard on the floorboards as audibly as a pebble. The sudden motion snagged his left shoulder in thorns made thicker by arthritis, and he squeezed his eyes tighter at the flare of pain.

The professor seemed bemused at Zim's reaction. He stirred from the chair, and went to retrieve it. He put it into his pocket.

Tallest Red and Tallest Purple were there in the black, laughing. Words came out through the laughter, and their voices had combined, becoming one:

' _The defect wants an upgrade!'_

' _It's been twenty two years, Zim. And you haven't conquered anything.'_

' _Before we go, could you just... maybe... run around on all fours? And bark like a human dog? Just for a moment?'_

' _Don't you get it, Smallest Zim? It's a joke. You're a joke. So we sent you a box full of jokes.'_

He had blurred out their comments like he blurred out anything and everything he didn't understand or didn't like so that he could avoid dealing with it. As a lodestar guided an Irken vessel, pride had guided him through any doubts he had briefly glimpsed through the fray. He had always fallen back on his own supremacy and poise of character, never giving in to subjugation or any emotional obstacles. But, in his heart, he knew the Tallest had somehow manipulated him, even though they lived halfway across the cosmos.

Upon his last visit before departure as an Invader, they must have placed the chip there themselves, or had got someone else to do the deed. He liked to believe it was a jealous Irken who had implanted the chip, but common soldiers did not have ready access to such tech. The Tallest did, or the Control Brains who supplied the chips that were then ready to be modified by the Tallest.

The box of dead, rotting Irkens had been a harsh mental blow, one Zim had blocked successfully at the time. And he had thought no more about them, cutting off such a happening from his consciousness to protect his emotional equilibrium. Now it was all tumbling down, hitting him blow for blow as if he was beneath an avalanche of rocks.

The Tallest had done this. They had been the ones who had driven Gir to madness, and had impelled Zim to destroy him.

Instead of flooding him with mindless sorrow, it drove a barb of rage so deep that Zim could barely swallow past it. His claws clenched hard within the captivity of his mittens and his good antenna struck forwards like an indicator of a compass pointing north.

"Hmm." The professor was looking inscrutably at him again, the clipboard back in his hands. "Miss. Clara has told me that you've been shivering. Hot and cold flushes. And you have trouble swallowing. I am not sure how else to discern this, given your biology, but you seem to be suffering drug withdrawal. I don't know how this will affect you in the meantime, short-term or long-term. That cache of drugs that the police confiscated – had to be yours. I do not know how to help you in this regard, and I am truly sorry for that."

Zim tightened his jaw. Wondered why the scientist cared.

"Now, I want you not to panic."

 _Not panic?_ Zim thought. His whole life always had a degree of panic to it.

He turned to look back at the professor from hooded murky eyes. Wondered what on Irk the man could possibly still surprise him with. There was nothing left to discover. Nothing left that could deepen the gravitational madness brewing away behind his eyes. He had been to the abyss. And had returned with much less than what he was before.

The scientist moved around the room, and opened a drawer after putting the clipboard down. It was obviously the wrong one. He opened another, and took out a simple handheld mirror. Its edges were softened in a cheap, black plastic.

Zim knew that there was nothing to be afraid of with mirrors.

Still, the professor was mumbling away in that deep, proud voice of his: "There's a perfectly good reason why I had to do this. And, as a result, all your vitals are on the rise. You could in fact live very comfortably for some time." He approached. With the mirror. Zim gave him a slow, scowling, questioning look. The scientist hesitated a moment, and lifted the mirror up. Zim was now peering at his own littleness. At first there was nothing new to see, other than the old creature he was forced to address, and the brittle uncertainness marked within his eyes. Then the professor adjusted it slightly, so that its reflection was angled at his PAK.

Zim looked into the mirror, seeing for the first time the intravenous-like tube plugged into his PAK, looping from the underside to the top. The lucent tubing gleamed from within its channel, its garish blue chemicals slurping upwards from below decks to serve the areas above in fast, quick cycles.

Zim's eyes widened at this contraption of human intervention; staring opaquely into the mirror with his mouth open, his right antenna darting forwards like an overhanging length of cable. He went to touch the tubing behind him with one awkward mitten hand. The tubing was securely wielded in, and could be nudged about, no harm done. But after giving it a quick prod, the professor gently dissuaded him from giving it anymore pokes.

"That there, dear Zim, is an exterior bypass. The delicate networks inside needed a bit of TLC, and some of the dead areas have been replaced, or bypassed. That's why you feel ten times better!" He waited to see what Zim might say or do, hoping the little alien creature wouldn't do anything foolish in his near-sighted panic. "This is electrical coolant, is it not? Or is it the PAK's own kinetic blood energy made to keep your internal neuropaths working? It pulses smoothly with your cardiac function."

Zim's eyes looked really, really big and shiny as he stared, rapt at the reflection he was imposed with.

"Your PAK is no longer overheating, and neither is it overworked." The professor continued passively. "The stress on your body has been alleviated. Though, I regret to say that you've lost your inherent ability to heal quickly. I'd say you lost that ability a long time ago, haven't you? I regretfully confess that I could go no deeper into your PAK to alter this."

The professor allowed Zim a final look at the reflection, even if the Elite sat there, looking at it gormlessly. Then he took it away, and Zim slowly, softly, began to gently rock himself back and forth. Yet, above all the confused emotional avalanches, there was only one precious thing that mattered. Only one thing that counted.

It took a moment for him to locate and then dig up his voice. It creaked. Like autumn branches aching in the wind. "Where's... wh-where's Dib?"

The professor had returned back to his side, but was now preparing something else. He was busily adding new tubes to Zim's forest of tubes. "My son?" He seemed perplexed by the simplicity of the question. "I don't know, I am afraid. He comes and goes as he pleases." Zim watched as the professor swapped out his half-empty IV bag with a new one. This one was labelled with a big black X symbol on it. Beneath it were words too small to read.

"Can you... can you fetch him f-for me?" He gasped.

The professor just sighed. "I don't think that's a good idea, I am afraid, little one."

' _What's wrong?'_ Cooed that snide little voice that was always a thought away. _'It's just another impermissible turn of horrible events. Isn't that right, almighty Zim?'_

 _I want to go home._

' _You can't go home! You have NO home!'_

 _Where's the Dib?_

' _What about that little meddlesome weasel? He's done enough damage, don't you think? Holy Irk will you just stop leaning on him for one minute! You need me! That's all you need! Be the soldier you were born to be!'_

"What are... what are you doing, Membrane?" Zim squeaked, trying to map out the professor's purpose as he moved about, adjusting things. Moving things around. He had pushed the chair away, and was now removing Zim's mittens.

"This goes against my own principles." Intoned the professor. He used a pair of slim, surgical scissors to begin cutting away the crepe that bound the mittens to Zim's tiny wrists. "But it's only fair. Usually I avoid ethical decisions. Science is a cold and productive study. It holds no place for human emotion and morals. We'd get nowhere in technological advancements if we were stopped every time by our own morality."

The scissors cut smoothly through the heavy crepe layer, and gently he peeled off the fabric so that he could tug off the mitten.

"But there is no sense forcing you to live if you're still in too much pain." He released the second and last mitten. "You are Dib's gift. You helped him through life, more than you'll ever know. He lost his mother when he was barely old enough to understand the concept of death. And still it affects him, even now. I had no idea how to rear two children on my own. I tried everything. And it still wasn't enough. Then you arrived. And he's never been happier."

Zim carefully flexed his pious claws before leaving them to rest on his lap.

The new knowledge of Dib's hard life weighed heavily on him.

 _That's why he stepped into plasma fire. Took the hit for me. He didn't want to face the old life again – the one he had had to endure before I arrived on this planet._

"Now, little one, I am going to give you two perfectly clear choices." Zim noticed that the professor wasn't looking at him now as he fed the new IV line into his catheter. "You have the choice of two freedoms, without consequence. You aren't a prize to be won. You are no one's trophy. You are a living creature with your own choices in mind, and we will respect and honour that. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Zim nodded. He understood very well.

Prof. Membrane secured the new line, tested its connection to the silvery filled IV bag and then stood there, shaking his head for a moment. Then, as if coming back to himself, he straightened and came over to ease a small cream-coloured button into the Elite's hand. It was smooth to hold. He took Zim's hand that was weighted by the catheter, and said very carefully, "If you want to go to sleep, and never wake, all you've got to do is push this button just the once. A painless serum will be injected from the IV into your bloodstream. You'll go to sleep in moments as if you've been hit with heavy sedation. In less than 90 seconds after its application, the serum will stop your heart. You won't feel a thing. That I promise."

Zim looked bleakly at the new IV bag, wondering how the professor had acquired a serum that would be so...effective.

"If you do not wish to press it, you need only ring this bell." In his other hand, the man pushed a little silver bell into it. It felt ice cold and very real against his feverishly sweaty palm.

"My... my remains." Zim croaked. "What will you do with t-them?"

The professor gave him a bewildered look, having not yet thought of it, and stunned that Zim had. "Well." He started, finding this topic most uncomfortable. "My son... well, he's decided to jettison your body into the cosmos. 'Where you belong.' He said. After he said that, he left. I haven't seen him since."

"Can you... can y-you fetch him for me?"

The professor noted Zim's repetition of the question. He was old after all. There was nothing more to be expected of him.

"I'm sorry, little one. That I cannot do. It will only bring more harm to the boy." He paused, looking strained. "Now, I shall bid you farewell. You can take as long as you desire." He did a little bow, as if he did not know how else to honour an Irken. Then he walked across the little room in heavy, ominous footsteps. Zim watched from his place in the bed as the scientist opened the door and then closed it swiftly behind him.

Zim was finally alone for the first time since his heart attack, but all he could do was blanch at the freedom he had suddenly been endowed with.

' _Your old life is gone. There is nothing left. You can never go back.'_

All he was left with was this cruel wanting. And he was too crippled by paradoxical desires and honour-bound anxieties.

 _Dib believed in me._

 _But I'm broken._

 _I have nothing left to give._

' _You have control now. Isn't that what you wanted? Control?'_

 _But... but what do I do with it?_

He blissfully wondered how cool and carefree it would be, to wake up in the mornings in a humble human abode, and live and play and work alongside his cherished friends. And be part of a family.

It was blasphemy to be pulled towards these exotic desires. These selfish wants.

' _You really think you have all the time in the world? To live with them? Oh you naive little soldier.'_

There'd be no base to hide in.

No schemes to follow through.

No world domination.

 _I am a warrior! I do have something left to give! I can... I can protect Clara, and Dib, and all their ugly little children!_

' _You aren't a human being! You can NEVER be one of them.'_

He thought of Gir. All the promises he'd made to him.

 _Don't look back. It's all gone._

' _The past. It still exists. You can't ignore it. It happened.'_

He was running...

Trying to find...

Trying to flee from...

Himself.

The scream behind him, inside him, came again. _'You need me! I own you! You're NOTHING without me!'_

 _These feelings inside... they don't belong here!_

 _I'm so tired._

The humble button in his hand could not be ignored or mistaken, as it sat perched in his claws like an exclamation point to his whole life's conclusion. The mittens had been removed for this one last act so that he could make no mistake.

His one and last duty assigned to him was a favourably simple one. But it was giving him such grief.

Live, and he'd accept his new future, whatever that entailed: possibly undertaking new demands he was not equipped for.

Die, and he'd be discarding all their past labours and efforts as he welcomed his own extinction.

It was cowardly, possibly. But he wasn't sure if he was prepared for anything else.

His dreams of dying on the battlefield had never come to be, and he felt disappointed. His life, in fact, had come to a messy end, leaving bloody vestiges in his footsteps. He was without a base, without any communications to his Empire, and he was without a S.I.R unit. This was every Irken's worst outcome: what they all feared on a subliminal level. Technology was their sanctification, their legacy. Their cloister.

Losing his PAK legs had become an unbearable addition to his grief. They had told him why they had done it. Why they had needed to go. And still Zim was senseless to the very idea of being an Irken soldier with no PAK support. He felt like a spider whose legs had all been plucked off: left to wither and to die as an abomination. It left him feeling like half an Irken, destined to die, marooned on an enemy planet, broken and useless with no recourse.

Zim never took his eyes off the button, gladdened at the power he had, but also galvanised by it.

He was bewitched by the very idea – the very notion that Clara and Dib wanted him. To come and live with them in some shabby house on some shabby street where they lived very ordinary and very boring lives. Clara had promised he could start again: could salvage some homemade tools, and make things, engineer things. And even offered him Tak's old redundant ship as if this token of approval would sway him from this one decision he had been endowed with.

To live...with humans?

Voices in his head started to laugh.

Zim stilled his mind from the press of frantic desperation, and exhaled nosily through his mouth and into the face mask: forcing his chest to labour in and out at a more controlled tempo before he totally gave himself up to panic. The oxygen from the tanks helped, and he was able to breathe so that he did not feel like he was drowning in his own pulmonary fluids.

To live was such a hard choice to accept. It was scary: filled as such with the abundant unknown. He did not even know how much life was left in him.

He would not know what to do with himself, other then be a psychosomatic victim to his demonic anxieties.

Within the core of his heart he tried to seek the seat of anger; the rage that made him want to face any threat; the unknown with inherent defiance. But there was nothing in him now, and chances were, there never would be again.

He was tired of being afraid. Tired of the heaps of anxiety that had driven him forwards: marching him from one ill plan to another, the anxieties cursing him, exhausting him, leaving him unhappy. As fire swept through dry straw, panic swept through him just as effortlessly. It choked him as easily as oil in the throat.

He wanted to escape it.

The button offered that solace.

He was but a broken creature now. And like the soldier he was, he analyzed his own fears, and knew he was tortured by the very idea of his unknown future; with humans no less – by the very same species he had intended to obliterate into dust. The only vanquishing he had ever done was to himself and his own province. He was aware of the irony, and was bereft with it.

The button looked bright and very real in his hold. A dapple of something wet fell on it, and made a mark as it trundled down the button's side. With a trembling claw he touched his face to see where it had come from, and realized with disturbing disquiet that it had been a tear, for he could feel another under the wedge of his eye.

' _Just push it, damn you! Be done with it! With everything! Fuck this place and all it represents! A soldier must be true to his calling! I finally have what Dib has been taking from me all this time! SO why are you STARING AT IT? PRESS THE FUCKING THING! STOP HESITATING YOU FOOL!'_

He shivered at his inner rage, at himself. At all he had become, and lost. He wanted to live, and that was what made him so afraid.

He was crying, and trying his very hardest to stifle it. He was failing miserably, and only got more angry and tearful at himself.

'' _You're free Zim! You're finally free! Think of it! No more missions! No more reports! You can finally be who you want to be!''_ Dib had once told him.

There were no alarming flashes of pain in his chest. No staggering asthmatic attacks. His joints still hurt, but then, he had known that pain for a very long time. In fact, not long before this button-consolidation, Clara had laid him on his side, and had given him a deep massage to his shoulders and hips. The rusty pain in those places had lifted: almost making a momentary absence, and it allowed him to reach some calm, warm Elysium. And he had almost fallen asleep under the duress of her touches, submitting to her at long last, only because he had given up.

The nagging part of it was, he knew they would take great care of him. Knew he could very possibly be loved, if love were real, and if he had the capabilities to learn it.

The thought almost made him feel... dizzy. It was a strange sensation – something he was sorely unused to feeling. Gir had got very close to making him feel that level of contentment, if that was what it was. A new mission report in his inbox made him... content. Or a new strange kind of sweet he had ordered that had come in the post. Was this what Dib had been talking about? Was this what being happy... felt like?

He looked up and away from the button for the first time, the focus in his eyes seeking the door. It was closed: like when a vet takes a pet away for the final merciful duty to go on ahead behind closed doors. So that they couldn't see what would become of him. So that, in his final sleep, he would die in solitude, because that's what they thought he wanted.

Suddenly he wanted to call them. Wanted to be reassured.

' _Don't give in to them! What are you doing? You can't LIVE with them! You are a killer! A trained KILLER! A monster! They'll forever suspect you! Forever HATE YOU!'_

He had to pull himself from the dead-end of his own making.

The dark Irken walked into the room as silently as a shadow. In his claws was the Absolute. He saliently grinned. When he spoke, his voice was silky and as black as liquorice. _'Prove to me that you still are the Empire's best. Redeem your honour. And end it. Or I'll do it for you.'_

"I'm not a coward!" Zim croaked back into the emptiness of the room.

' _Sure you are. You always have been. You've never faced up to your own consequences. Never taken the blame. That's okay. I'll take it all.'_

Pushing that button required so little effort.

Getting into the autodoc pod for departure hadn't been giving up: merely following protocol. It was required of him. But now there was no protocol. Only his own decisions, and he was fearful, unsure. He wasn't sure he was capable of living his own life, abiding by his own rules and choices. What was an Irken to do with so much diversity? All his life he had been under someone's thumb, always following rules, objectives, going from task to task, as preordained as he was to accomplish whatever he was set out to do.

The one and only choice he had ever been allowed to make his entire life was his mission career and he had clung to that like a bee to nectar, wanting to be an invader once he had passed all assignments to become a fully fledged Elite. He had tried to overcome the sheer enormity of his one problem: his tiny size. Taller Irkens always had more choices in life, something he was forever abstained from.

Now he had too much choice. And the implications threatened to shatter his sanity.

Dib had stepped into plasma fire for him without thought. Had made him an accursed skateboard. Got him out of danger. Treated him like a comrade. Got him walking, when he was sure he'd never find his balance again. He realized that he had been bereft of purpose for a very long time, having hidden the fact from himself, and had just battled on with no conquest to attain.

' _You're drowning in problems that don't matter.'_ Came his other self's sweet anecdote _. 'Don't be afraid. Be who you were born to be and surrender yourself to the Empire. What is an Irken without orders, hmm? He's just a little crawling thing. Freedom is but an illusion, after all.'_

Zim noticed the ECG cords running in through his gown and bandages, monitoring his heart rate. He plucked up one thin wire cord in his claws, and pulled it. Then he gripped another, and pulled that one as well. The big, scary machine keeping guard over him like some robotic sentry began to emit funny, unnerving noises. The rhythmic beeping began to drop. Zim continued plucking out each attachment, wondering why he was doing this, wondering why he was fancying the thought of life without any equipment to keep him safe.

What was an Irken, without a mission?

What was an Irken without the aegis of his base? Without his blustering great flag of red and black?

More tears ran down his sunken, white cheeks. He came to the last one hooked to the base of his sternum.

He yanked it off, his hand coming to within an inch of accidently hitting the serum button. The departure of the last ECG monitoring pad set off an alarm as the monitor no longer showed a trace of weak heart activity. Zim sat and waited, pretty sure that yes, he had finally gone mad, that this was what being crazy was, without feeling any transition between sane, and insane. For this was not what soldiers did: allowing themselves the comfort and support of their enemies. Hitting the button would inevitably give them his corpse to learn from, but at least he would be refrained from their ill-placed mercy and their kindness.

Smeets were tutored harshly about compassion, and to see it as another guise of evil.

The alarms ran down his good antenna.

They weren't coming.

Why weren't they coming?

He looked down at the catheter.

' _No! No don't you dare!'_ The soldier made a move forwards, and suddenly the Absolute was in Zim's hand. The shadow paused mid-step. _'How... how did you do that?'_

Zim brought the muzzle of the Absolute round to face his former self.

The shadow's face leered. _'You can't do this! Not without me! YOU CAN'T! Don't turn AWAY from me!'_

"You are my chains." Zim whispered. "I'll do a lot better without you."

' _NO!'_

He ripped out the catheter tube. Let it fall. Silver liquid spilled out its intestinal end. The shadow burst into capricious raven feathers.

Tearing off the breathing mask, Zim shifted the blankets that weighed about as much as sheets of iron, and he eased his bony old legs towards the bed's nefarious edge. It was a long way down.

He made a strangled animal sound in his throat. Like a pensive old fool, he went to summon his PAK legs out of trained habit, only realizing a few seconds later that he was no longer in possession of his adequate fallback tools.

Zim stretched out a leg, seeking the bottom reach of the floor, one clawed hand convulsively clutching the bed sheets as if they were ship ropes.

He tumbled down, taking half as many blankets with him.

The ex-invader whimpered when he greeted the laminate floor with a soft little thump. His muscles were likened to noodles. The strength in his legs was woefully absent. When he went to put pressure on them as he made to stand, they oscillated madly. He slipped down a few times.

Horror crept through him. This feebleness brutalised his thoughts; brutalised his semblance of control. He had never known such powerlessness. This constant invalidism terrified him to the ends of his rope, and his thoughts constantly turned to who he was before; trying desperately to remember what he used to mean, what he used to _be_.

He climbed upright, using any and all furniture along his path for support.

Breathing became much harder, and the efforts to pant down oxygen started a fire, low and smouldering, inside his chest.

Slowly he coasted himself from one cabinet to a chair, all leading him closer to the one and only door. He was miserably sweating through his dinosaur pyjamas again.

He located a wooden stool, and pushed it forwards, alternatively resting against it, and then heaving it across the floor as if it carried about as much weight as a truck. He got it to the door, and he precariously climbed up its short, metal rungs to reach the door handle. He tipped it down, breathing heavily - so much so - that each desperate inhale caused his chest to emit a sickly whistle.

The latch clicked.

The door opened – just a tad. He descended down the stool with measured carefulness (which took a full minute too long), and he waddled drunkenly to the open slit, pausing to shiver and shake. He peered out into the clean, well lit corridor of a place he had never seen beyond his prison. A red rug ran down it like a long, tapered tongue. The floor was lined with potted plants and ornaments of past awarded scientific achievements.

He pushed himself through the narrow opening, knowing full well that he was taxing any and all energy he had. His heartbeats felt troubled. It kept stalling in his chest like an old, rattling engine about to quit on him.

He wasn't sure which direction to go in. Left, or right?

There was no one out here, and he could catch no drifting scent that might otherwise have given him a clue.

"D-Dib...?" His voice sounded foreign and alien to his own dim hearing. He could barely get it up past one octave, and he felt like a swimmer, drowning, with no coastguard looking his way. "Dib-b!" He was shivering so hard that he felt something cramp in his side.

 _Go left! Left!_

He turned. Was met with a wall of dizziness, and he fell, one hand scrabbling for purchase. He landed heavily on the floor. Then he rose slowly back up again, shuffling each rebellious knee beneath him until he was back on his wobbly feet. The battle recommenced. And on he limped.

He turned a corner. Saw Clara standing there, looking solemnly out the window. The evening light made her face look ashy yellow. Then she turned; noticing the sly movements out of the corner of her eyes, and froze. If he had not known any different, he would have thought she was a perfectly still wax figure.

Then she tore herself forwards. "Zim! Oh my god! Oh my god!" It was all she seemed able to enunciate. "Holy! Oh my god!" Then, "Zim, honey, what are you doing? Oh my gods! Baby, I'll get you back to bed! You have to rest! What are you doing out here? Didn't the professor...?"

Zim paused. Out of breath. He leaned against the wall, knees planted to the carpet, one hand holding his chest as if he was trying to sustain his inner fragility. "I'm good. I'm good." Sweat rolled off his skin and dripped to the floor.

She knelt beside him. "Where do you think you are going, honey?"

"Somewhere." He swallowed, wondering if she could hear his weak, crackly whispers. His atrophied muscles burned but he pushed himself on again anyway. Gently he lifted himself back up, though this took an achingly long time before he was tiptoeing forwards again. His whistling, gasping breaths were loud.

Clara approached him, hands outstretched to pick him up: to protect him from his own torture, and he squealed miserably at her, raising the claws from his chest to slap her away. "No! No! Please! No!"

"Zim! Why are you doing this? Let me pick you up! Please!" She followed his tortuously slow steps as he clung to the wall in case he tipped over. If he had been walking along the precipice of a cliff, he would have acted no differently. "Come on back to bed!" She pleaded. "You're not yourself! What is it you're after? I'll take you there!"

"Got... got to do this..." There was hysteria in Zim's wide eyes; and the emptiness of madness. He licked his dry lips. Was looking everywhere at once like a wild deer caught in a car's headlights.

"Do what?" She asked, tears building in her eyes.

"Please... please let me do this!"

She looked absolutely confused and terrified. Zim stopped, sloping to the floor on shivery legs. He knew what he was doing. It would be all right.

 _You've... you've gone mad._ Was the soft, tearful conclusion in her eyes.

He climbed back up. How long was this corridor?

One leg buckled and he plunged back to the floor, eyes wincing closed at the anticipated blow. He had fallen on a tree trunk. Oh no, wait, it was Clara's arm. She went to pluck him from the floor, gather his littleness into her arms. And oh how glad he would be to surrender like that. But no. No. He could not do that. So he shrieked at her in so shrill a pitch that she retracted her hold, looking at him in full horror.

"Zim! I order you! Stop! Just stop!"

These orders hurt. He had a duty to obey her now. "Let me do this! Let me..."

Clara looked around for help. The corridor was empty. She knew she should be hurrying to find and get the professor but that meant leaving Zim all alone.

She gathered her cardigan at the edges, and pulled it clear from her shoulders and head, causing her amber hair to go all frizzy. Then she cuddled it over Zim's shivery shoulders. He fell into helpless squealing again, as loud as the strength in his voice could deliver.

"No! N-No!"

"I'm not stopping you, sweetie, I'm just putting my cardigan over your shoulders to keep you warm."

Zim sunk down to rest, having nearly got to the end of the hallway. His shoulder was planted against the cool wood of the wall, body shaky with sweat and stress.

He was scarily hyperventilating.

Clara could feel the cool of her own sweat gather under her hairline.

Then, he said, "Where... where is Dib?"

She swallowed hard. Was that why he was out here? Was he searching for him?

"I'll... try calling him. Just, just sit still, please!" She whisked out her phone, hit a few buttons in a panic, and pressed the phone against her ear.

But Zim would not wait. He was off again, hand brushing heavily against the wall as he made his way drunkenly forwards. His feet seemed to weave haphazardly forwards, often dragging, and not really planting a solid step.

There was no answer. Dib had his phone switched off.

When had she last seen him? What had he been doing last? She could not truthfully remember. The past few days had been a blur of coffee, sparse meals and nightmares.

"Shit." She said.

Zim paused long enough so that he could glance at her, surprise softening that tension beneath his eyes. He had never heard her curse before.

She met his gentle condescending look with something she hoped would come across as understanding. "I'm going to find him, and if I can't find him, I'm going to get Mr. Membrane." She gave him another parting look, and she smiled so softly. He knew what she meant, and felt, by that smile.

Then she stood up to her full height, and jogged away on socked feet down the corridor, heading back behind him, past his 'sick' room and into some unknown valley beyond it.

Alone again, he paused on shaky legs, listening for the beckoning, teasing voices that were never far from him. The hallway was deceptively... quiet. The only thing he could really hear were the wet, hyper wheezes blowing out of his throat.

Gir was smiling at him from the far corner of the corridor, summoning him forwards with a gesture of his hand. "Little ways more, Master! Just a little ways more!"

He pushed himself from the wall, one hand anchored to his chest as he stumbled along, his other hand reaching blindly. He felt the hurt of ravaged flesh beneath the pressure of his hooked fingers.

Just a little ways more. Had to be just a little ways more.

Gir enticed him onwards. His little metal feet drummed up the long snaking carpet. Zim followed an inch at a time, and turned the corner. More hallway spilled out before him. How big were these places?

There were three doors. Two on either side of him – and one at the very end down the hall. All of them closed.

"Which o-one, Gir? Which door?" He asked.

Gir walked up to the furthest one – the one at the end of the hallway, and pointed at it. Then the door clicked open from the other side, and yawned wide. Dib was there. But he was not alone. The professor was standing behind him, and he had his gloved hands upon his son's bony shoulders. Zim looked up, and for a whole moment he did not recognise him.

He hoped this was no hallucination.

Dib looked sickeningly white where his skin had healed – and great shadows were smudged under his eyes. His right hand had been wrapped in gauze that had turned red and then orange: foretelling new and older blood stains.

The young man looked like he had emerged from a great devastation, and had no more strength left to endure what he'd seen.

Zim couldn't place this man with the one he knew before.

"D-Dib?" His right antenna sprung forwards. His eyes watered.

He could see the transition shift from despair to timid joy in Dib's watery, distant amber eyes.

The professor was reluctant to let him go, but he took his hands away. Dib started forwards, walking with a slight limp to his right leg. Then his pace quickened until he was painfully jogging, and he skimmed his knees to the floor to throw Zim up into his arms. The Irken clawed his fingers deathly tight into Dib's cigarette-smelly jacket that stank of booze, blood and coffee grounds.

"You old bastard. You old bastard." Dib kept saying, holding his nemesis tightly with all of his strength. Zim felt the wetness of his own tears stain the young man's clothing. "I knew you wouldn't give up the good fight. I knew it." Then, as if a switch had been flicked deep inside; releasing all his rage and pain, Dib burst into tears.

Clara approached from behind the professor, and stood reluctantly by him, looking unsure, yet comforted as she watched the strangest pair sob together on the carpet in the middle of the hallway. The professor looked down at her, as if mildly irritated at her for lingering so long. Then he nudged her with a hand, pushing her forwards.

She gave the taller man a look, and then understood when he gave her a puzzled frown.

Like a dainty doe on glass legs, she approached. Zim looked up at her, eyes so watery that the tears just spilled from polished ruby. She had never seen them glow quite like that before; beneath the waterfall. She sunk down beside the pair and nuzzled into Zim on the opposite side, sandwiching him between them.

To be needed: to be wanted, for anything other than his Empire was a shocking truth to establish.

In the midst of the human comfort that he had once condemned, he saw Gir beyond his field of vision, and saw him wave before he slowly faded, and then disappeared.

* * *

 **Dib07:** I could so end the story right here.

Reviews are GREATLY appreciated! Pleaze feed me!


	40. My Weaker Half

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	41. With Cracks like These

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 _ **Summary:**_

 _When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless._

 _When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear._

 _ **Disclaimer:**_

 _I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau._

 _ **Warnings:**_

 _Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes._

* * *

 **Dib07:** Hello, hello! Here we are again! Please, accept this update of madness.  All my review replies are at the bottom of this chapter!

 **Sorry for the SLIGHT confusion! This is not a true update! I shuffled in a requested chapter - chapter 40! Sorry! I'm awful! Disown me please!**

I also want to give a BIG shout out to **Piratemonkies64 aka Slothfantasy** on tumblr for doing the first seven Saving Zim audio chapters! She's worked so hard on these, and I really recommend anyone who's interested to go and give them a listen on youtube! It'll be well worth your time! They are amazing! It takes you straight back into their world instantly, with gorgeous ambience and sound effects to mention just a few of the magic she conjures to make this happen! I just hope some of my older chapters stand up to these glorious audio representations! BTW **Piratemonkies** , this is the chapter you were looking forward to!

I also want to give a BIG shout out to **Rissy too aka Apocalypticwaffles** on tumblr for drawing Saving Zim fanart! TWICE! Well, thrice counting our friendship anniversary day because it's been too long since I last updated XD. The fact that she manages to draw and spend time on them between her busy schedules moves me to tears. Her lines are always so crystal sharp, the detail hits my heart, and the imagination she employs is beautiful. She's drawn Clara stunningly too, and Zim is always so squisherly...squishly? adorable in her art! He is a PUDDING! You should see the one where he's in his winter coat and scarf holding hands with Clara who's standing with Dib. I'm sure you can find them on her page on tumblr! Please check it out!

 **Timmicita, don't worry, you get a mention in the newest chapter! Oh yes!**

* * *

 **CHAPTER 41: With Cracks like These**

 _'If I had a chance for another try,_  
 _I wouldn't change a thing_  
 _This made me all on who I am inside'_

 _Rite of Spring – Angels and Airwaves_

 _-x-_

He had become desensitized: not just to the world adjacent to his mind and body, but to everyone and everything in it, including himself. Even the blood running down his knuckles, dripping off him like oil did not arouse a singular feeling in him. He just watched that blood fall, feeling entombed by the abyss he had unwittingly fallen into.

His heart had hardened into stone, and his soul had opened into a great black pit of numbness. He knew the way Clara looked at him; the way a sailor would look at a drowning swimmer. Though she had thrown the lifebuoy at him multiple times, not giving up, he had chosen instead to go under.

It wasn't just the fact that everything he had worked towards had been for nothing.

It was the heavy, anvil-weight of guilt in all its ugly pureness. He had done Zim wrong.

He thought there was decorum in the act, a species of incredible justice that would elicit gratitude and honour in the short term. Selfishly, he had fancied himself a bit of a hero, because, in the tireless mindset of everything he did, he always thought he was doing the right thing. Instead he had put Zim through the meat grinder. And taken away his wings.

It was only when he had taken a step back that he realized with horror all the wrongs he had set up, and he powerlessly watched them fall down on his old enemy one after the other.

How could he ever expect Zim to be something else?

How could he ever expect an alien to discard all boundaries, all assets and lay siege to his own walls...for a different breed of life, and for him? A human? You could not: as surely as you could not place a wild tiger into your front parlour and expect it to be happy with the arrangement.

All the illusions of his tactless grandeur started to show, all his self-imposed tricks and stubborn ambitions. He didn't have all the answers, yet he acted as though he had them all in his pocket like a fucking-know-it-all. He was too much like his father, and was just as power-hungry for control as he was.

He had to let things go. Had to let Zim go.

He had then locked himself in a cage of anger; but even that could not whittle away the shock at how easily he had been misled by his own decisions and actions that had been so _right_ at the time. This embitterment caused a bit of a stir in the numbness, and the anger was better than feeling nothing at all. The open gash in his hand; running with red, didn't help him feel much else either. All he was left with was the smouldering ruin of anguish in his heart that opposed all else as if he were sealed inside a black bubble.

This was what it felt like to lose.

Lying in that hospital bed hadn't produced _this_ kind of evil helplessness.

Then his father came; intruding into his self-condemning guilt, and Dib fought him back. He wanted to stay in this dark place, wanted to cling to the corner he had accelerated himself into. Wanted to stay numb and blind and deaf in this hellish bubble.

His father's unreserved kindness mollified the belligerence just enough for him to notice that he was wrapping gauze over the bleeding hand; and to hear his words as he spoke, despite the way the bubble made those words turn all muffled and distant. He was really not aware of anything, and was not willing to put any effort into being aware. He needed time; needed time to consolidate the shattered pieces of his heart.

His father guided him as if he was turning a stone, and Dib drooped under his guidance, safe in the bubble. His legs would move unwillingly, so be it, but his mind and heart would stay fixed on that dark point.

His eyes gazed numbly ahead.

When he saw Zim zigzag drunkenly down the corridor on difficult legs, mostly clinging to the wall and mostly straying from it like a desert wanderer stretched thin with famine, he had thought his mind had finally snapped under the weight of all that grief. It was too much. Much too much.

Zim straightened as much as the burden in his bones would allow, looking at him as if _Dib_ was the hallucination.

He had called his name, as if certain this intrepid acknowledgement would cause the human's image to fray at the seams, proving that he was no more than a ghost. It did just the opposite, and Dib could feel the life flowing back into him again, no, not just flowing but FLOODING into him. The world was edging back into his periphery; warming up its colours and sounds until his senses felt overloaded with this novel equilibrium. That bubble that had been trapping his emotions and draining them to thin grey ribbons exploded in the suddenness.

He dived into a dash, and only when he felt Zim's weight against him did the cold and the heaviness of that awful grief blow away too.

The nightmare had been cleaved aside, breaking the bars of his cage with it.

For the longest time, even when he had finally won control of his tears, the two of them held on, as if each of them was scared of losing the other as soon as their grip weakened.

That was then.

With a rolled up comic book squashed under an arm, and a lukewarm cup of coffee in one hand, Dib pushed open the door using the tip of his shoe with practised finesse. The door emitted that soft, slow creak, and Zim gave him an assessing look from the wheelchair with a jolt of uneasy alarm.

When he saw who it was, he went back to whatever it was he had been doing with an air of doe-like nervousness; he was glowering through the window and at the professor's private gardens beyond. Much of the dead flowerbeds, usually clustered in red tulips, golden marigolds and white roses come the summer, were still pocketed in pools of melting ice and mud. The grass had not been cut all winter, and the stems, stringy and wild, made the garden look uncombed and hectic.

The oxygen mask had been left to lie on the little nightstand by the bed. A loud dimpled ring remained around Zim's mouth and tiny nasal slits.

Dib looked around, expecting to see Clara or the professor. When he saw that Zim was quite clearly on his own, a predestined jab of anger soured his aerated mood. "Wasn't Clara supposed to be watching you?"

"I do not n-need to be watched." His eyes were tethered to the outside world as he sat, slightly hunched, legs all wrapped up in a lilac blanket. His PAK's strange, alien glow seemed more vibrant this afternoon beneath the room's lighting. Dib couldn't help but see the PAK not as a life giver and a supporter, but as some parasitical force that instead drained Zim's energy. It was an imputation of evil. An unholy symbiotic amalgamation of organic and inorganic fusions. He wondered if Zim sometimes lay awake at night, thinking of this too.

It had started to rain. The first of the spring showers. It left welts in the slumped valleys of melting snow. Streaks of silver clung to the outside of the glass, and made their slow, shivery way down.

At first, as he put down the comic and Styrofoam cup, he thought that Zim was looking at the scenery, and evaluating the professor's poor excuse of a garden when he realized that the Irken was not looking at the grounds at all. He was staring, with detached emptiness, at his reflection. And what was most noticeable in that mirrored image was the translucent tube of blue. It was as if he couldn't _help_ but notice it. And couldn't escape it.

He could feel the former Elite's shaky and dissevered mood in the room as if it was a physical force, and chose not to push him about being 'unsupervised' and what he had 'said' to Clara to get her to leave. So he silently grabbed the chair by the bed and placed it by the wheelchair. He sat down, ready to fold his right leg over the other, and thought; _better not._

Zim's posture softened, his stiffened shoulders slumping as if he'd been tense this whole time. His eyes swept away from his reflection, and they seemed to smile up at the human most bizarrely as if Dib was likened to a parent, and his presence automatically evicted him of all his childish terrors.

The liquid in the bypass tube bubbled upwards, its warm blue glow reminding Dib of the old lava lamps he used to keep as a child. Its sounds were much less intrusive as he got used to its noises.

There was always this strange intensity in those old fuchsia eyes, and that disturbing sense of knowing that always unbalanced the paranormal enthusiast. The Irken softly asked in that splintered voice of his. "Dib. Why did you do it?"

He swallowed, his mind racing to try and figure out what in the world Zim was referring to.

The promise? The choices he had made in his own life? Or what he had forced Zim to become? Maybe it was something else, something he hadn't thought of yet? He struggled to think, and then decided he felt much too guilty to voice it out.

"Must I spell it out for you?" Zim sighed tiredly, as if he was back to dealing with Gir's unaccountable emotional messes. He motioned at Dib's gauze-bound hand. "Why did you _do_ that to yourself?" His slender right black feeler cranked upwards in a perfect 60 degree angle. Cold sick-sweat made the Irken's forehead look ultra shiny.

"I... I didn't..." He choked, feeling immediately defensive. The Elite was seeing through his excuses as plainly as a lie detector could. There was something different in him now ever since he had been brought back to life; something solemn, maybe. And extra perceptive.

Dib turned to the window before them. It was one of those wide vertical ones with the thick double glazing. It was windy outside, and wet, but you wouldn't think it. It was so warm and comfy in here.

"Yes Zim. I do stupid things." He said finally, eyes hooked on the wild, tussled plants through the teardrops of rain on the window.

The Irken nodded readily, as if glad that finally, yes, his silly human was ultimately learning a fact that had been evading him all this while. Now that the former Elite wasn't so pathologically hassled about control, and when he wasn't on the throne, he was surprisingly endearing.

"Well, it doesn't matter now." The investigator continued softly. "I'll heal." He looked down at his bandaged hand resting on one knee. No one had asked him how he had got it, but Zim seemed to know with that strange alien perception of his what mood he had been in, and need only imagine what he had gone and done.

Despite the disappointed way Zim was looking at him, he could not help but offer up a shy sort of smile, knowing how far they'd journeyed together; and how far away that road in their past now lay behind them; its thorny lane receding further and further by the day. He never thought he'd be sitting here, smiling like a fool on the inside, all the past aches and hurts finally backing and shrinking away to allow new space for serenity to grow. He did not want to look back to see the souls they once were.

Zim's left claws reached over his handlebar, and lifted a layer of bandaging on the human's arm that was peeking out from under his black jacket sleeve. Dib pulled his arm away. "I'm ugly underneath, Zim. You shouldn't see."

"Uglier, you mean." The corners of his mouth tilted into a considerate smirk. Despite the shakes and the sweats and the coughs, he seemed more patient with himself, and to all of them. "How... how badly did G-Gir..." The timid grin lost its strength right there and then, as if he had been thrown into darkness. There was no mistaking the way his right antenna dropped down as if someone was pulling on its end.

"Is not as bad as all that, Fudge... really it's not..."

"Show me." His voice, a brittle creak, was somehow more demanding than his patented shouts.

"It's nothing, okay, it's..."

"S-Show me!" The rust clogging his vocals had vanished. One eyelid had fallen down halfway – it always made him look really sly when he did that.

Dib hesitated; considering if he should. He had wanted to look at himself in a mirror since his mummification at the hospital when he had first woken up. He also did not want to know what he looked like at all. Seeing those layers of gauze was enough. What he was bound to see would later haunt him. Clara could not love a man who resembled a pepperoni pizza. And neither could he love himself.

Not so long ago, there had been a shy moment of courage when he had wanted to part away the garments and see what he had become – with Zim by his side. But it was too easy to curl back up again, and refuse the opportunity with stoical acceptance. Better to live on, better to endure.

"You've been with me... every step of the way." Zim whispered, his chest sounding sticky with phlegm as he took a breath and pushed it back out again. "Now stop being such a child, and take off that awful wrapping before I do it for you."

He was looking at his human with that steely intensity – that same old intensity the Irken had coldly exhibited when they used to square off. He knew that look. It went hand-in-hand with his chaotic childhood years when their battles were as indisputable as the blood that was shed. It used to frighten him – that look - when Zim pulled off the kiddie gloves and got serious.

A flush of rain hit the thick windowpane as the wind picked up, causing the Irken to shy a little. But his heavy gaze on the human did not let up.

Conveniently there was one of those tall mirrors that had been pushed out of the way long before to make room for the many instruments that had kept the Irken alive. On numb legs, Dib left the chair and pushed aside an empty oxygen canister to get to it. Its frame was made out of heavy oak. He pushed it more or less into the centre of the floor and let it stand there.

Zim released the break-lever on his wheelchair and pivoted it around by backing and filling until he had more or less turned the contraption around in a slow turn. But Dib wasn't watching the Irken. He was watching the flinty glare in his own amber eyes, and the dishevelled way he looked in that mirror. Except for the telltale gauze edging up his neck, his clothing hid the rest of it, just the way he liked it.

He did not regret the day he had stepped out to protect the soldier who had once lived only to slay him. He did not regret the ramifications of this choice. It didn't mend the past of course, but in the direst moments, the worst of times, no one thought clearly. He had done what he had done.

He took off his jacket. It slipped down his sore arms, and he let it fall to the floor. Next he plucked up the bottom hem of his blue shirt, hesitating again, eyes wet and fearful in the mirror. Skin was such a personal thing. When injured, it produced ill thoughts of uncleanness. Disease. Ugliness. Shame.

Zim was silent in the wheelchair, commiserating perhaps. Not a single insult did he lay down or blurt. In fact he had been discordantly quiet for a long time.

 _Just do it quickly. Like pulling off a Band-Aid._ He thought. And he pulled off the blue shirt, revealing swathes of gauze down his lean stomach, under his armpits, up his chest and around his waist. Plasma fire was super effective against human flesh. It ate through meat like acid ate through Styrofoam. He was lucky not to have got an infection, but because the flesh could never really heal, he was never out of the woods.

He unwound his bloodied right hand's plaster wraps first, and he massaged the hand by closing it into a fist and opening it again. The deep cuts were red and puffy; the swollen skin as shiny as glue.

 _Well, you've started something now. May as well take off the rest._

 _Zim. Say something._

 _Your silence. It's worse._

He unbuckled his belt; glad to be rid of the friction – and his pants dropped to fold and wrinkle around his ankles. All he wore were his blue boxer shorts and socks.

Slowly at first, as if he were unwrapping a prized ornament from its packaging, he peeled off each niche of plaster bandage that kept one chain of gauze to another. They came undone, one long strip at a time, coming to rest like beehive husks at his feet. Already he could feel the air getting to the tenderness underneath; attacking it, drying it out. He didn't want to look at what he was revealing in the mirror. He would look like one of those skinned animals shown on wildlife survival documentaries.

Each portion of dressing that fell away revealed a streak of red that was smeared in angry white blisters.

Zim's bottom left eyelid twitched upwards in a wince. The claws of his left hand crunched into the faux leather on the handlebar.

When Dib's eyes darted from the rawness of his skin beneath to the inimitable anguish in Zim's eyes reflected in the mirror, he paused.

They locked eyes.

At once the Irken disconsolate gaze softened.

He peeled away more gauze. Allowed it to fall clean away. No use hiding behind it. No use ignoring the fact.

The last strip of dressing was undone, and Dib stood before his reflection, seeing the gashes of ruby cement his skin. The dry air scorched him, made him feel like he was aflame once again.

He stared repugnantly at himself, barely able to tolerate the sight.

"We're a right pair now." He whispered, suddenly wanting to cover himself back up again as if he was a totem to every evil that had manifested on the skin. But even if he closed his eyes, he'd still see that redness, that perversion marking his image. He really did look as awful as he imagined he would. No wonder lying down in bed felt like he was snuggling against super heated granite.

There was a squeak of rubber. Dib did not need to turn around to see Zim rolling himself over towards the mirror.

There was something in his claws. A pot, with a soft pink lid. He must have been holding it all this time, or had it hiding under his blankets. It's not like he could fit stuff into his PAK anymore like he used to.

Dib looked down at him, and at the pot he held, aghast. He knew that pot. It was some kind of Irken exoflum cream – the very same salve he'd been using on Zim's cuts.

"Zim? What are you implying?"

The Irken humourlessly rolled his ruby eyes skyward as if he was utterly exhausted by Dib's constant stupidity.

The human reached out and took the little pink pot before he ignited Zim's higher annoyance levels.

Due to the slow turn of the weeks that led into months, he had studied written Irken enough to read the basics, so long as there were no complicated inflections that made him think vaguely of Japanese calligraphy.

Needless to say, he had read the general information on this pot of ointment many times before.

' _Can soothes plasma burns.'_ It read, or he thought it read in garish Irken. _'Contains an alkaline agent for neutralizing acidic injuries as well as aiding natural tissue regeneration.'_

Zim must have read his thoughts. "Even if it doesn't work on stupidy stupid humans... it might still take the sting off."

The investigator blinked, looking momentarily winded as if he had just been hit in the gut. "You want me to soothe my red skin in your Irken chemicals?" He asked, trying to see if Zim was joking.

"If you want to look like an o-overdone turkey all your life, th-that's your problem."

He frowned. Zim was looking incredibly...apathetic, as if dealing with a dim human was using a lot of patience.

Dib opened the plastic lid of the container, and stared at the pink 'exoflum' with suspicion. Many times he had spread it over Zim's wounds, never once thinking of what it could do for his own burns. He had always put gloves on when applying it in case the chemicals reacted adversely to his human biology.

Zim was watching him from hooded eyes, his countenance vacant of expression.

A thousand things Dib suddenly wanted to say to him, but he could not yet muster the necessary bravery. His sombre eyes went glassy.

He eased a finger into the syrupy pink contents. It was just like body lotion cream, and had the same feel to it. The skin of his finger wasn't burning up, or reacting to it, just yet, so he foolishly greased some of it over his left shoulder first, knowing full well that he was wiping himself in alien chemicals without properly testing it. Even Zim pulled a face, as if expecting Dib to be a little bit smarter in this regard.

"Dimwit! Maybe you should..." The Irken started to say; even raising a bony arm to point out his mistake, then relaxed and gave up midsentence. "If you swell and blow up, I'm not taking the b-blame!"

"Ahuh." He said, slathering it in thicker amounts over his hip beneath the waistband of his boxer shorts, and over his chest and stomach. It strangely, bizarrely, took away the dry itchiness. It tingled though, as if he had just got out of a bath that had been way too hot.

All the time he kept his eyes focused on the mirror in case a random body part did begin to bloat or melt or something.

The redness in his left shoulder had gone down already. It still had a hot pink hue to it, as if he had been resting it on the side of a boiling oven, but the colour had improved from its angry, abraded red.

He looked to Zim with appreciation brightening his eyes.

The patches he had applied to his chest and stomach weren't so inflamed anymore either. He wondered if this was only temporary, if this was the calm before the storm, and soon he'd paint the room - and Zim - in his blood right after a violent implosion of the body. Even the Irken had now rolled himself a few inches away as if in preparation for this resultant shower of body parts.

 _What was that saying? If you've eaten the poison, you may as well lick the plate?_

"D-Dib! S-Slow down! Don't use all of it at once!"

"It's okay, Zim! I feel fine!"

He applied the cream to his burns until the container was empty. He knew he was being stupid in this kind of extensive rashness, and the skin tingled weirdly as it absorbed the alien chemicals. Then he walked around, experimentally moving his shoulders. The gash on his hand was bleeding, but he didn't notice it.

Zim's eyes were on him all the time.

Slowly he slipped his shirt back on, this time without wearing any dressing underneath. He prodded his left shoulder with a finger. It stung, but only a little, whereas before he had hardly been able to let anything brush against it.

"You're not exploding?" Zim asked, looking out of his mind in worry. At that, Dib laughed. He laughed all the pain away, as rainfall washed away the dirt and snow after a long winter's day.

He could hardly believe this moment. Could hardly believe it was real. Had he really been guided out of that dark corner? Was he really speaking to an otherworldly creature? Or had his mind truly snapped, and this was just a very realistic dream he was having behind the curtains?

He put the rest of his clothes back on, and then ran his bleeding hand up his arm sleeve, feeling the cry of his skin beneath the pressure, but the blisters had sunken right down and that cartoonish redness that had so utterly eclipsed him had paled. This Irken concoction, made out of god knows what, had not just alleviated the damage, it was knitting him back together again. Yes he would bleed some. Feel the bite sear into him if he bumped into something, but, given enough time, he would no longer look like he had just come out of an oven medium rare.

He whipped around, a wild excitement in his eyes, and Zim flinched against his backrest, thinking that maybe Dib was about to cramp up and then pop like an overinflated balloon. He flopped down at Zim's foot paddles and took the Irken's shaky claws in one hand.

Those slender, prim claws; once manacles of strength - with the capacity of becoming clamps if he so needed them to be - were now shades of their former selves. They could barely hold a spoon now; much less give anything any real grip.

"How can I thank you? I feel so much better! This is unbelievable! My dad will be lost for words! And Clara..."

He put the brakes on – hard – so much so that he could hardly stop his spiel of gratitude. Zim nodded and smiled, truly happy that Dib was no longer in the same league as 'overdone turkeys,' yet there was something old and lost in his gaze. There was no mistaking it.

"Zim, Zim what is it?" Everything inside him seemed to drop. "Are you in pain? Please, you've got to tell me!"

"No... n-no it's that that." He shut his eyes for a moment, and then opened them again. Those eyes of his were extra luminous and shiny, as if they had been heavily burnished with polish. "I thought I'd lose you. I...I had to make a c-choice. I thought I'd lose you." He repeated it again, as if these feelings from a still-too-painful past had washed up in his mind, and he had never truly recovered from it.

The sea always brought up its debris.

Outside, the rain poured. It drummed like a thousand fingers on the windowpane.

"I...I had to do it." He was wincing away, as if wincing from the memory.

"Take a breath, Zim. It's okay."

"When you f-fell... It was the blood. It wouldn't stop c-coming out..."

Dib couldn't help frowning; stumbling over categories of his own memory to try and figure out what Zim was talking about. A door opened at about the same time in his mind, and out of it came a day thick with screams and bludgeoning darkness that had climbed over the pain like winter's frost over a summer flower. He had remembered lying in wet grass, ears ringing, with an Irken desperately pushing at him before everything spiralled into solid black. He had woken up confused, in the hospital some unknown time later, the leftover desolation for him to re-discover.

He would always remember, vividly, that surreal out-of-body experience when he barrelled his way into the soldier's house to see a destroyed Gir lying like clutter on the floor.

He hadn't told the Irken that Clara had recovered Gir's remains before the alien base's timer hit zero, and he hadn't yet felt ready to tell him that Gir – or what was left of him - was on the desk in his new bedroom. He felt like going on ahead, and burying the robot in the backyard before Zim had a chance to see the woes of his former life.

"Hey, hey. It's all behind us." He put both arms around him, and felt that sweaty wet on the Irken's skin as he pressed him against his shoulder. Dib was not just his cornerstone, but his bedrock and stockade. He could not imagine how quickly the world had fallen apart for Zim. Could not imagine the firestorm burning away every tether had held him to reality. Could not imagine or want to imagine how unstable and crazed Zim must have looked when he had darkly turned on his robot.

Had Zim sat in the ambulance beside him? Had he laid down his own personal fears to stay at his side? His heart knew that he had. What Clara and his father had told him had been enough to put the pieces together.

"Do you realize how fearless you are, space jerk? You've braved the truth. And you've been to the dark of the other side, where no one's ever come back from to talk about it, but _you_ have. You've braved the hardest battle of your life so that you can be free to build new memories. No other Irken has done that, have they? And none ever will, because there's no other Irken quite like you. Earth is your home now, as it is mine. It's _always_ been your home. You've just never noticed before."

 _Once one door closes, another one opens._ Dib thought.

Zim just kept his eyes turned away.

A part of him wondered if he'd ever see the old Zim again, the one with the plans and the angry gestures and the snorting laughs. Did it matter? Really? No, no it didn't. He loved the old bastard either way, even if he would never truly feel comfortable with Zim's long spell of strange silences and the quiet, lost depth in his eyes. What else could he expect from a creature that had no strength? And no reliant PAK healing cheat codes?

His wings were gone, along with his securities and standardized automated safeguards.

A tortoise living without its shell felt a lot differently than one with its shell still on.

They parted slowly. Outside a grim darkness had begun to spread, and the rain was plopping against the windowpane in random bursts.

There was something very freeing about the spring thaw. It pushed out the mud; snow and dirt of last year's debris, making everything cleaner again. The trees would soon bud with new life. The grass would be revived by the sun's warmer touch. Withered, cold flowers would thaw too, unburdening themselves from the purgatory of hibernation.

He felt this change in Zim too, even if it couldn't be seen quite yet.

"Let me wheel you back to bed. It's getting late." He offered, already putting one bloody hand on the handlebars crowning the backrest. Zim grumped in protest, not liking this enforcement of dependency, however brief it might be.

Dib wheeled him to the bedside, and Zim pulled himself up onto the bed before plonking himself against the pillows. The human went to tuck him up despite the old Irken's grunty little noises of protest, and he had a moment to wonder how well he'd cope in a manmade environment, and how well he'd survive living in a house that consisted of two humans, and more importantly, how he'd cope when he was not shut away in a protective bubble of technology and Irken military grade security. He'd have no work of evil to keep him busy.

As excited as Dib was to take his little alien home, he was, without a doubt, a little bit nervous. He had no idea how this was going to work.

-x-

Clara came to Dib later that evening when the light of day had withered into shadow and a cool pink dusk had sunken low upon the clouds before absconding. She immediately noticed the lack of gauze, and the missing leagues of sticky medical strips and heavy-duty bandages littering his thin frame. Dib just laconically smiled at her when she blasted him with excited questions.

"It was Zim's doing." He said at last when she reached up to touch his cheek – a cheek that had never stopped bleeding since he was hospitalized. Now all she felt was a slight crust of very pink skin. "He told me to use the medicinal cream – the same stuff we've been using on his gashes. It's like they repaired the tissue, but on a microscopic scale. I can't explain it. There's hardly any scarring now."

"Does it still hurt?"

"Some." He said. "I used what was left of the stuff. I knew it was risky. I did! But I feel miles better! No more bandages! No more of that nasty epitome cream crap! No more Nurse Joy!"

They hugged, and Clara embraced him more tightly than she had ever dared before, on account of his burns. Now she was no longer quite so afraid of hurting him. And for a spell, neither wanted to part from the other. Things were finally looking up. The murky darkness that had gathered in Dib's eyes and mood had cleared almost overnight, and Clara was so delighted that he seemed back to his old ambitious self. He was a little stiff in her embrace, as if a part of him was still very afraid of the future, of what was yet to come that could not be seen, but when they parted just a little; his smile was fulsome and carefree.

"Why do you always take such stupid risks?" She asked with a layer of heavy admonishment in her tone. Here was her fiancé, making dumb decisions again without her helpful advice.

Dib had to pause a moment to consider her question. "I know." He said somewhat apologetically as if the circumstances of the incident embarrassed him a little.

"You probably don't like to think it, but you and Zim are very much alike." She said with a returning smile. "You both get so self-destructive when you're moody! And often don't stop to think about the consequences. It's really unhealthy."

"At least I don't get hysterical like he does!"

"Oh really!"

They laughed.

"I never really thanked you," Dib said suddenly to her. "For not... for not giving up on me. For not giving up on Zim. It's been hard on you. Very hard. But you stayed strong. For the both of us. You...you could have gone to the authorities. Gone to the media. Or you could have just walked away. I wouldn't have blamed you. But you stayed." His voice broke; too poignantly knotted to say another word.

Clara put an arm around him, and held him tight.

Outside, the rainfall continued; pushing away all the tired clutter of winter for places new.

* * *

 **A/N:** **Here are the replies to these amazing and heart-lifting reviews! (Seriously I am over the moon with such loving feedback, I never, ever, in all my years, imagined this kind of response, so thank you. Thank you for all your wonderful support and love!)**

 **Leo** ; Oh trust me, Leo, I could never get bored with this story! To watch them change, and adapt to what they are presented with has been nothing short of magical in every sense. The fact that I get to share this story is also a wonderful thing. And thank you with all my heart for your staggeringly kind comments. I hope I'll keep doing these characters justice by writing them as well as I can.

 **Guest (June 8th)** ; Oh my goodness how can I reply to this amazing and exciting review?! Oooh! I'm THRILLED to hear that each time I update it has you reacting like that! I hope this update has the same thrill too! Oh Zim pushing himself to the edge like that! It's so hard, so very hard to get a character to open up and see the truth, because the truth is so painful, and often destroys what makes them tick. He had to overcome himself, or perish. I'm so proud of him too! I want to see him be the Irken he could have been before the Empire moulded him into a slave for the hive mind.

Your feedback is dynamite – I ADORE IT! Does the love in the story really show that much? I'm so proud. I cannot thank you, and the audience, enough for keeping the faith and supporting me, and I thank the colourful, wonderful cast of Invader Zim for the implosion of inspiration! Oh and though things may be winding down for them, there is a lot to look forward to! I cannot wait to show you!

 **Guest (June 7the)** ; Sorry! Yeah, it kinda happens, reading this story! XD I hope you had tissues on standby!

 **Binaural Beats** ; Your dad sounds very much like everyone's favourite space bug! My dad's the same, in many ways! Full of information and loves attention, and is young at heart!

 **Naga** ; Yes Naga, I obey!

 **Michelle P** ; Your wish is granted! Hope you enjoy! Stick around for further updates! (I promise they won't be so long this time!)

 **Ciara P** ; You super star! Thank you for much! I will cherish your feedback for as long as I live – I'm such a lovesick dork like that – but honestly what you've said brought me to tears. Especially when I'm so used to hating my own work. What I write never feels good enough. But I must let go of this negativity. Writing opens that door to the other side, and as a fellow writer you know exactly what it feels like. It can be frustrating at times, finding the right balance, but you'll get there. You will. I hope I'll do my part and serve as an inspiration to you, because that would be an honour.

 **Parcel Mistress** ; This gorgeous feedback – I am stunlocked with awe! Isn't binge-reading something you really enjoy simply the best? I've done that before, but it stuns me that you think my story is THAT good to keep you reading it until late at night! Yes, I hope the coming chapters are just as fun and as enticing to read as the former! Thank you so much for reading AND reviewing lovely Parcel Mistress!

 **ZimGir4life** ; Thank you for loving my story even if it took you hours to read! Yes it is a long one. Stories are great for personal interpretation and expanding on the show. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions and different views. Yes, be upset with me for killing Gir! Don't feel bad about it! That's what stories are great at; evoking emotion, and getting us invested in their lives even if it hurts.

 **DappleJackalope** ; So glad you found this story through fanart on Tumblr! (I wonder which lovely one it was that grabbed your attention?) Even if this story was a bit of an emotional train wreck, because it was XD OOooh OH DappleJackalope all your enticing questions thrill me! Yes you will get to see a lot of things! I'm not saying anything that'll give away spoilers, it's going to be for you to discover but oh boy I cannot wait to see what you'll think! Thank you for reviewing! You had me go all rosy with smiles!

 **Guest (October 4th);** Oh I am so glad this story is smooth to read! I sometimes worry (well, I worry a lot), thinking I overcomplicate things and waffle. There's just so much going on sometimes, haha! Anyway, I really hope you're enjoying the rest of the story okay too! Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it a TON!


	42. Dissolving Boundaries

**Saving Zim by Dib07**

 _ **Summary:**_

 _When you had it all. When old age forces you to change. When life isn't what you'd imagined. When you aren't prepared to be so powerless._

 _When a soldier's undetermined future remains his greatest fear._

 _ **Disclaimer:**_

 _I do not own the IZ characters. However this story and this idea is mine. Cover art lovingly designed and drawn by TheCau._

 _ **Warnings:**_

 _Zim Angst. Violence, language and distressing scenes._

* * *

 **Dib07:** Another crazy update! Yay! I didn't need to brush up too much on this chapter, though it'll probably bite me later. Grammar and spelling mistakes love to pop up only after I've uploaded the thing even though my eyes hurt after combing through it again and again... XD

All hail and praise **Timmicita**! There is this lovely piece of artwork on Tumblr he has wonderfully crafted of a scene from the  Saving Zim chapter: Soldier's Apotheosis Homecoming (chap 39) and AAHHHHHH it's so good! I can't stop praising him! Please check it out! PLEASE! I still can't stop spilling girly tears just thinking about it! There is SO MUCH LOVE for this story and I can't stop gushing! I CAN'T STOP! So urm, excuse my emotional melt, it happens to me sometimes. What's more, **Timmicita** has this pleasing style that is always so stunningly detailed. He brings these characters to life, endowing each scene or picture with personality and mood and colour that's utter PURE eye-candy. So please do visit his page when you get a chance, especially when tumblr might not be around long.

 **Timmicita,** this chapter is dedicated to YOU!

* * *

 **CHAPTER 42: Dissolving Boundaries**

"You ready to get out of here later today, Fudgekin? You must be sick of this place."

Zim turned over in bed, but could not escape the violation of light striking his eyelids when Dib struck the curtains aside to reveal the intense morning that flooded in.

There was no routine, no order in how the humans bustled in and out of his little domain. It scared him that they were the ones making the decisions now, and would no doubt continue to endorse this contrived trend from here on out.

Zim felt the creak of the bed as a certain human sat on the edge of it. He opened his eyes to scowl him with an evil look that really came off as just mild annoyance.

Dib offered a sunny smile.

"T-Today?" Was his brisk rasp that did a poor job of disguising the anxiety that took over in a blink.

"Yeah. Today, hotshot. Once you've had breakfast." Dib reached out and took a firm, gentle hold of his shoulder as if he could transfer a little of his confidence into him. "Everything's ready. You're the last missing piece. Hey, we get to annoy each other so much more now! So I better buy some new earplugs, huh?"

The Irken however, didn't seem to get the joke, and his expression did not soften.

 _I know it's not easy, putting your faith and trust in us, but I'm not going to let you down._

-x-

"See? You do it up like this."

His vivid fuchsia eyes, always more dramatic and brilliant in dim light, watched her in closing horror as Clara wrapped his left hand in a wrist brace. To secure its tightness she did up the Velcro straps.

"I don't like it." He said. "It's stu-stupid and clunky." Once her manipulative hands had retreated, Zim waved his imprisoned hand up and down to test the weight, his disapproval clear.

Clara gave him her own censorious frown. "You think you know best, do you?"

"Yes." He said in a suddenly small voice.

She gave him another playful sigh, pretending to be annoyed. It usually worked at unseating him.

Because he had been struggling to do up his buttons with that weak left, she began to do them up for him.

Zim looked down until his chin hit the ridge of his collarbone. Her silky hands fastened up the creamy pink buttons on his soft pink jumper with punctual precision; hiding the sweeping swathe of gauze beneath. These new and varied clothes were not super tight on his frame like his old uniform. Some were baggier than he liked, and kind of fell over his ankles and wrists. His pants were made out of the same super soft fleecy material. It was so gentle on him that he felt like he had been wrapped in bubbles. These 'frocks' however were quite unlike the tight practicability and primness of his uniforms and they didn't exact the same refined grace.

There was also the 'no-glove' business. He had spent the vast majority of his life and career wearing tailored boots and gloves, enclosing himself off from the intimacy of life with them, and now – now he felt strange new connections with common things through touch and touch alone. Why had he not taken his gloves off any earlier in his life? There was so much to touch, to feel, and to sense.

But, without these gloves, it also removed the safeguard he had installed between himself and the world. He was more open to it now than he had ever been.

Clara paused, looking at him sitting on the little chair from her honey-glazed eyes of amber. She had caught the deep gloom passing over his face like a shadow; the sly downwards incline of his right antenna. "What's wrong, honey? Don't you like your new hoodie?"

"No. It's just...different."

"How about these?" She turned back to the open drawer by his bed. It was mostly empty of contents. The rest of his 'things' had been packed into one big suitcase and hauled into the car. His human guardian – this foster mother - took out a pair of little grey loafers. Like his clothing, they were hand-knitted in that same comfy crotchet cotton and they had little grips on the bottom. She slipped them onto his feet without preamble. Zim wiggled his toes experimentally, and stiffly lifted up his right leg so that he could peer more closely at them. He was going to shamble around in these things? He couldn't satisfyingly clack his heels in these damn things. No one would be able to hear him coming. How could he build up an entrance now?

He looked back at her, saw her smiling nervously; wanting to please him, and he suddenly didn't have the energy or the gall to insist on how ridiculous the shoes were.

She kept up her smile even though he had not given his opinion on the loafers, or his consent of having to wear them.

"You look good! It'll keep you toasty and warm. It's a bit breezy out there." She closed the drawer and kneeled down, patting the leather on the seat of the child-sized wheelchair beside her. "Are you ready, Zim? I can carry you, or I can take you for a ride."

Zim rolled his eyes over to the gangly wheelchair; a recurrent icon of the disabled, the redundant, the broken and the useless. "I'll walk." He said, looking assertively back at her. It might tax his energy, but he needed to rebuild his strength brick by brick.

"It's a fair way. You'll get tired."

He rubbed for a moment on his chest when the itchiness swarmed, but it was also part of his body language, exhibiting fractious fidgeting when anxiety struck. His right hand had a big plaster on it from there the catheter had been angrily plugged. It was good to be rid of the tubes and the grim machines that stood around him like tombstones awaiting his end. It would be good to see the sky again, and refill his heart with homesickness when he'd lay his eyes on the stars.

"Zim?"

He looked up at her with a violent jolt.

Her hand was soothing the wrinkles under his eye.

"It's going to be all right." She was saying.

He wanted to tell her she was wrong. How could she know anything? But the terror of his first leap into the unknown devoured his concentration, and it blackened the last shreds of his confidence.

It was time to face the monolith of uncertainty: an uncertainty that had frightened him since Day One of taking the plunge to live.

Clara upturned her hand, holding it out before him.

Zim looked quizzically at it, then at her, one eye dipping into a shrewd squint. He felt stupid a moment later when he realized what she meant.

Instead of slapping away her offer, he placed his claws in her hand, swallowing hard, eyes bright with terror. He slipped off the chair. Felt his pulse skyrocket.

Squeezing his hand in hers, Clara guided him forwards. The bottom grips of the loafers squeaked on the enamel of the floor as he made little titbit steps. Picking a rucksack that contained the last of the adopted Irken's things; Clara slipped the strap over her shoulder, leaving the wheelchair for the professor to come back and retrieve.

Irkens did not look back. Never looked back. But look back he did, at the very small world that had been his corner: his security, his little piece of safety.

He was more vulnerable than he had ever been, and would ever be. As a result, he ping-ponged from one emotion to the next at extreme speeds, and he'd squeeze on her hand a little too hard.

Out through the door of his bedroom she led him, her hand squeezing back. He felt like a cart on wheels rolling down a long incline to the dark below. He wanted to pull against her, wanted to weed out his hand from hers and go back, but there was nothing to march back to.

The mahogany corridor he had seen during his wheelchair romps opened out before them like a tunnel.

He was walking so close to Clara that she was worried of bumping into him. She noticed that, as he tried to welcome these new self-discoveries and changes, he equally shied away from them. His complexity of character that was hard to understand, especially when the forefront of his guarded personality was always morphing; his moods impinging upon an altering persona just when it had begun to stabilize.

He was less inclined to slip behind these jealous indomitable walls. The masks he wore were getting more translucent. His pride had been cast down like glass: left as scattered remnants so that occasionally, only fragments could be gleamed of his former courage.

Zim lifted his chin just a little. His right antenna bobbed up and down like a cat toy with a feather baited at one end. Voices could now be heard: the low, deep severity of the professor's voice, and the light, airy cadence of the Dib's. Those loafers continued to squeak along, the soft hood at Zim's back bouncing up and down on his PAK and its lucent blue tube glowed hot and blue.

Clara watched his eyes harden in a pre-emptive measure as if he was walking towards the frontlines of battle.

They turned a corner. The floor was chequered in wide honey ingots from the afternoon sunlight as it slanted through. It accentuated the dust motes as they hung like a hundred galaxies in the air.

Zim suddenly stopped as if he had bumped into an invisible wall, causing her to a halt before she dragged him across the floor. He was trembling despite the deep warmth of his fleecy hoodie but it was not the cold that was making him shiver. He was on a path of complete ambiguity. No brakes could be applied now, no vestiges of strength left to make it all the easier. Zim lifted his shy eyes to meet hers. The hand in the wrist brace hung like a cumbersome weight at his side.

"I'm always right beside you." She said as warmly as she could give. "Just a little further and you'll be home."

His good antenna whisked downwards. Emotions were waging wars in him. She had never seen a creature suffer such terrible internal conflicts.

He stared at her a little longer – as if he was deciding whether or not he should breach his isolated walls of severe loneliness and confess. Then the former Elite looked to the way ahead in childish fretfulness, taking a burbling breath as if to quieten his internal shakes.

Clara let him take charge of his own pace, and so, without encouragement, he continued on.

 _You were supposed to the tough one._ A voice chided in his head. _The resilient one._ _You were the chieftain of your dreams. The king of your own council. The mighty conqueror. Now here you are, afraid to peer around corners. Afraid of the next step. What do you think is out there for you? Why even try?_

Human voices drew closer. He could hear what they were saying once he raised his intact antenna as high as it could go.

"...oh, because of the dyspnoea?"

"Yes. Always set the valve to 30, no less. And remember the twelve hour rule. I want no catastrophes."

"I know, I know. You've been drilling it into me for weeks now. It's his diet that really scares me. How will I know what I give him won't trigger an analeptic shock?"

"Like I said, offer him a tiny portion in case of a reaction, or stick to the tried-and-tested foods. And remember, when it rains, shut all the windows and doors. The damp air will make his coughing worse, understand? Buy a dehumidifier for the house. Oh, and change his bandaging once a day until there is no seepage. And son..."

There was a sharp, resounding: "What?"

"Remember to take care of yourself as well. You look..."

"...Like an insomniac, I know."

They turned the last corner. Zim leaned too close to her leg again, causing her to side-step around him before he ended up beneath her.

"Zim!" She chastised.

Dib looked over at them and grinned instantly, the lopsided smile temporarily erasing the despondency around his eyes.

"Ah, well done!" The professor sounded pleased that Zim had walked all the way from his room. He approached the Irken who had wedged himself against Clara's leg. The scientist knelt down, the shadowy lenses of his goggles reflecting the former soldier's dark kaleidoscope of fear, "Your fortitude continues to astound me!"

Zim nodded nervously the once; there was a trickle of timid expression before it was superseded into an intrepid blankness.

"I picked up the last of his things. Everything else is already at the house." Clara lifted up the rucksack on her shoulder, "It's just the wheelchair that's left."

"Lucky for us it's getting foggy out there." Dib added. "The timing's perfect. No one will see him." His eyes darted towards Clara. "Do you have a blanket to wrap him up in just in case?"

Zim was flummoxed on what to say, looking at them each in turn, then down at the floor, and lastly up into the concealed face of the tall human being who had liberated him from his pain, who had given him a second chance, and who knew far more about his biology than anyone else. It had been an embarrassing affair as far as he was concerned, having been rescued by Dib's father once already from the whole 'baloney' thing that had gone way out of hand.

What would life be like, with no more military dictation? His slave half would fray and then dissolve without it.

He needed computers to console him with their calculated solutions. He needed a lair to hide in. Needed PAK legs to augment his indomitable supremacy.

"Do you feel ready to go home?" This was Dib now. He was crouching before him, eyes aged and full of sleepless nights. He looked nervous too, but there was courage in him to smile.

"Absolutely." He squeaked, mentally clapping his claws together in praise when he did not stutter! Then he glanced upwards at the professor's imposing figure. He wanted to thank the man, he supposed, and express some gratitude, but he choked on what to say, not knowing how to convey these confused feelings. A part of him was still doomed to hate the professor's help; such was the curse of living a life he did not know how to endure, with demons hollering behind a door. On the other hand he now had a chance to see what was beyond the horizons of this normal life past all caged restrictions, and he might now be able to escape the dark prison his own heart had made over the decades.

The professor reached out and petted Zim's head. Much to Dib and Clara's mirrored surprise, the Irken allowed Membrane to do this. "You don't need to thank me, little one." He said, as if understanding Zim's crescendo of capering anxieties. "Your steady recuperation is all the gratification one could ask for."

Then he offered a hand for Zim to shake. The Irken started on a salute with his hand in the wrist brace, then hesitated, and dropped the salutation; as if remembering a little late that he didn't need to maintain the habit. He reached out, his braced hand trembling badly, and it was clasped warmly by the professor as he shook it. "You are the epitome of life beyond Earth, and you've encouraged me to believe in boundless possibilities! I am honoured to have known you."

They parted hands, and Zim looked to the professor with amity. This plaintive expression smoothed out some of his deeper wrinkles, causing them to appear shallower than they really were.

For one bizarre moment, among all the other bizarre moments that he was suffused to suffer, he suddenly felt a great admiration for the man even though he still very much hated the sacrifices he had parted with, which controversially confused him. He had to be willing, and was willing... to go on without the pretension of his former life.

"I only hope that you continue to convalesce once you leave the boon of my lab. You'll be in my son's care, and Miss Vernon's, but you're still very fragile. You must let your two new guardians know if you are ever feeling unwell. You can go downhill quickly."

The professor stood to his full height; falling back into his habituated formalness, hands coming to rest at his back to complete this studious front as if he harboured no sentimentality – and was in fact free from its many fetters as if professionalism – and professionalism alone was paramount to his character.

He added; "I am sore to let you depart, little one, but I am very happy to see you go and make a new life for yourself! And we will not part ways for long! I shall come and visit as often as I can! Oh, and if you should happen to go space travelling any time in the future, please remember to bring me back a memento!"

Dib could have sworn his father had just winked at the Irken, but who could tell with those dark goggles he wore?

Zim nodded only ever so slightly. But he was looking at something on the floor now even though there was nothing there to see, and a touch of desolation or grief blossomed in those eyes, empathising the wrinkles around them once more.

Clara was beside his wilting frame. "You're tired, aren't you? I'll carry you all the way home, sweetpea. If you'll let me."

Zim found it hard to distract himself from where his thoughts had briefly taken him to. He regarded her expression for a moment, and recognised that deferential reassuring look of hers, and the way the warmth seemed to brighten and then glow in her eyes. He moved towards her and then angrily fetched his claws into the skirt of her cardigan where he bent forwards, chin low, antenna drooping over his shoulder.

"There's no need to be scared, silly!" She cooed before scooping him up and lifting him into her arms. A trail of cardigan followed with him until she plucked each net of fabric from his claws, only for him to then hook them anew into the cardigan at her chest.

Despite the padded thickness of his knitted clothing, she could still feel the firm lines and contours of the Irken's little bones.

The professor patted Dib on the head too. "If you're concerned about anything, call me. If he's in any pain, or his dyspnoea worries you, call me immediately."

"I will dad, I will."

"Hey, it's going to be fine." Clara tilted Dib's chin up with a finger. His eyes focused on her, and his taut posture softened a little. "I promise. We all need a fresh start, and the sooner we can get to the starting line, the better."

-x-

It was the cool, frigid air that rekindled his senses from their grief even if it made him tuck his single antenna tight against his skull to prevent it from being blown about in the capricious breeze. The mixed feelings of unease intensified – his fear taking deeper root – though he saw very little, as he had his face buried against the flowery fabric of Clara's cardigan. There was no mistaking the sting of cold air on his skin. There was the vitalizing smell of damp grass: the heady scent of the jasmine growing along the brickwork of the professor's office. He could hear the querulous _thunk_ and _clank_ of the folded wheelchair as it was stowed in the trunk of the car; clattering like old teeth. He was doomed to have it follow him home like a ball and chain.

 _I'm not afraid!_

 _Not! Afraid!_

Even before he could feel himself being carried into the protection of the car, the chill and the wind helped push away the dour discomforts he had felt all the while in the professor's lab of wonders. It felt good to feel the rapture of the Earth: his now permanent home.

There had always been that overwhelming and prescient sense of ominous dread that came with the association of human beings, and everything they did he never really understood. For many days and nights, he had lain listening to the beat of his own clock on the ECG-machine, brain awash with drugged confusion and pained fevers that came and went like the tide. He had never been alone in that fevered dark, but he had been very alone in his own head. Now it was all tumbling away as he felt the freedom of the wind at his PAK and the bright dappled sunshine on his pale green skin.

He could feel Clara stroke his head, the place behind his right antenna. This released some principal tension: the formidable walls in his heart lowering. His claws that had fastened into her clothing, even the one supported in its brace, loosened in kind.

He could feel more than hear the idle growl of the car's engine. Could smell the nasty, oily diesel fumes it emitted. It was mixed in with the stale stink of tobacco that permeated the fabric of the car's interior.

 _Naughty stupid Dib still smoking those smoky beastly sticks._

Clara jostled about slightly under him as she made herself comfortable on the seat. Then she tried to lift him away; pull his claws from her cardigan. "Zim!" She was saying in a light but condescending tone, "I need to put on my seatbelt! Let go for just a second!"

"Here. Let me." Came the deep, ever calm voice of the professor. Gloved hands settled over his claws, and eked them up by gently bending the joints. There was the fast buzz of a nylon seatbelt being pulled from its slot, and a clipping _snap_ as it connected with the slot by the seat. Arms eased him towards her again, and his claws sought new fabric to cling to.

He wasn't even wearing a disguise! What madness had poisoned these foolhardy humans? The whole world would crowd round to see him – this aberration from the stars!

Despite so many tangling worries, and with the unmistakable feel of the sunshine warming his sickly skin, he was encouraged to shyly open one eye. The professor was looking in on them from the curb, having to bend to do so.

"The gates from my lab to the main road are all open for you." The professor was saying to his son who sat at the wheel, "They'll be no security guards or checkpoints. Keep driving until you all get home safely. Remember to call me if there's ever a problem! I will be round to visit shortly as soon as I am able. And son, keep up my good work."

"I will, dad. And thank you. For everything." Zim heard the investigator say.

"And Zim?" The professor added, "Try not to cause too much chaos in one night!"

Then he shut the door, leaving Zim to suddenly grieve the professor's absence before they had even left. Next, he felt the car's idling grunt turn into a soft purr as Dib knuckled down on first gear after disabling the handbrake. Membrane had always been the epitome of gentle kindness, not the deadly, carnivorous scientist Zim had once believed him to be. It was a shame that the professor was not joining them to oversee Zim's integration into his new home, but something appeared to be holding him back. Perhaps, in hiding from the world to treat the Irken, work had piled up, and it was work that the professor had to get back to.

Dib drove the car down the garden road, whistling some awful tune. Zim was glad for once that he had impaired hearing.

Peering over her shoulder, he watched the professor stand proudly in the middle of the road, one hand behind his back, the other waving at them. His distinct profile grew smaller and smaller as the car widened the distance, and then the Toyota turned a corner. He was gone.

Clara was wrapping a fleece blanket around his body. "It's going to be okay. Just a little road trip." She nuzzled him gently when she felt the first nervous shiver bolt down him. Dib turned the dial up on the volume of the radio, hoping that a classical touch of Beethoven would help soothe the Irken. It was hard not to succumb to that gruelling punch of panic in his gut when he heard Zim emit the first frightened mewl.

Dib tried his hardest to keep looking at the road, to keep looking ahead. The open gates loomed in front, the checkpoints empty of security guards, just like his father had promised. The car went through the gates, unchallenged. Then he was driving through the last checkpoint, and out onto the main road.

"Hey, no freaking out back there, space jerk. We'll find lots of evil things for you to do, don't you worry." He said above the classical composition of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, hoping his sarcasm would cheer Zim up. He paused at the first junction, signalling to go left. The flurry of traffic was heavier than he would have liked.

Now that they were doing this – finally taking Zim home – the emotional tempest he had brought under control was now threatening to magnify into an uncontrolled slurry of anxieties he hoped would ease and then disappear. Now it amplified until he felt sick and shaky.

What if it didn't work out?

What if they gave him the wrong foods by accident?

And what if someone saw him by accident? Through a window? Or even through an opening door when the postman came to deliver their mail?

He had visions of Gary, and the way he had looked at him back in the office; a look so cold that Dib could have framed it and hung it on his wall. He had been absent from work for nearly a month. He hoped Gary would have put the bad business behind them, but most of all, Dib hoped he still had a place at the office.

Every one of them needed a routine to go back to.

Dib swallowed and afforded a brief look in the rear-view mirror. Zim's eyes were as wide as they could go, looking like big silvery coins of fuchsia.

He took a deeper breath. It took away the immediate panic, but the fundamental worry could not be so easily shifted. He asked himself why he was so worried, and realized, in questioning himself, that the true cause of his worry was simply uncertainty when they were in charge of a creature they still knew so little about.

 _It's okay. We'll learn. One step at a time. And if there is an obstacle, we'll overcome it._

He felt himself relaxing: was able to take repossession of his smile again.

"We have so many things to show you, Zim! Just don't break anything expensive or my home insurance is going to go up."

"S-Safe?" At last, a word from him, even if it was shaky and thick with hoarse splutters.

"Of course it will be safe!" Dib said, looking occasionally at the rear-view mirror. The traffic was thinning out in front.

"I... I need to see it..."

"See what, Fudgekins?"

"Your inexcusable e-excuse fo-for security. Will no doubt n-need to improve..."

"Oh no, Zim. You are going to be on strict bed rest for a while. You aren't allowed to work. Not yet."

His claws clenched harder against Clara's cardigan in frustration. He wasn't sure if he was tearing up the fabric or not, and hoped he wasn't, but he couldn't help his own destructive nature.

So this was it. He _was_ going to be their little unusual pet. Surviving, only to follow their rules. Their stupid HOUSE RULES! If they had been on paper, he would have torn it all up.

Work was what he lived for. He needed some purpose. He had already imagined himself as a defender of the Dib's home, and he could not do that if they were going to use his weakness as leverage.

Because she was feeling him tear irresolutely at her cardigan top, or maybe it was because she saw the way his antenna wilted, she coddled him, and whispered reassuringly, "If you go easy on yourself, I'll let you do some light work as soon as you want. It'll be your home too. If there are some things you want to change, you can."

Dib drummed his fingers on the leather of the steering wheel, suddenly feeling like the Bad Cop. Give Zim that little bit of freedom, that extra length of rope, and he wouldn't just stop there. He'd abuse it. He was too obsessive to know or even comprehend his own limits, and was too full of himself to take another's advice.

 _Stop your worrying Dib, old buddy._ He told himself as he drove. _It's early days. He's an Irken, remember? They run on different codes. You can't stop him being himself._

Zim must have taken a breath too deep, for he started coughing and coughing. Clara sat him up a little; patting his shoulders.

"Okay honey, okay..." Clara cooed, used to his edema-induced coughing fits.

Without the professor always on standby, and as such, giving Dib that comforting assurance of 'a rescue is never very far away' scenario, Zim's watery coughs were a lot scarier to listen to.

"Take a deep breath through your nose, honey... that's it."

He heard the Irken shakily draw breath, and another, each inhale sounding difficult. And this was during the day. Dib was dreading the dark hours, when his dyspnoea would hit him the hardest.

After five minutes, Zim had quietened, his right antenna lying limp across the blanket. Many times he baulked alert in a wild, senseless panic whenever Dib suddenly braked at a stop light, or when the car picked up speed. And whenever the car stopped for longer than a minute in traffic, his terror climbed – as he imagined people coming over to look through the passenger window from their dark, shapeless faces. But when he peeped fearfully around, he saw no danger.

"Five more minutes, Fudge." Dib said.

"My name is not that hard to remember." He sneered quietly.

He could take the uncertainty no longer. Using his skinny arms, he pushed up on Clara's shoulder and stood up on her lap, looking over the window's lower shelf. Before him was a very familiar street that he used to walk down with Gir on a leash. He knew that sidewalk. He knew that crooked old house with the broken downstairs window and the birds nesting in the roof. He knew that blue mailbox, the one with the dented lid, because he himself had made it during one of his angry fits as he passed. There was that spindly old rose bush that Dib had thrown him into on his way home from high school, and there, that rusty old bus stop always seemingly full of stray cats.

This was their home street. This was Maple Road.

"My...My base..." He faintly stirred.

Dib glanced forlornly at him. "It's gone, Zim. It's all gone. I don't think you should see what's left."

He sunk back into Clara's arms, the fleece blanket acting like a cloak upon his shoulders.

The car was rolling down Canvas Road now, heading towards more rural country.

Zim was stunned to recognise a slow but sure burn of excitement stirring in him. He suddenly couldn't wait to get out, fling wide the door to another adventure, and see beyond the curtain. But then his paranoia took hold of the switch in his head – it had control of all the buttons and switches these days, and his heart was hammering madly again. What would happen when night fell? What if the security was as impoverished as paper?

A sudden fit of the shivers came over him, causing Clara to tighten her arms around his rattling body.

Even as the car drew to a slow brake as it inched up Dib's driveway, the former Elite was sure, felt so sure, that a thunderbolt from the Empire would strike him down for his soon-to-be-committed crimes. Surely someone up there was spying on him, save for his own conscience?

But there was no thunderbolt this day, and no advancing Irken ship to deal with his contravention of Irken Law. Despite this, and even when Dib stepped out and opened the rear car with the sky all aquamarine with soft, lazy clouds scudding over a sleepy afternoon sun, Zim felt burdened with shame with a creeping need to be punished. Then he was lifted into sunshine, causing these bad thoughts to trickle down to the lower decks of his mind as Clara held him tightly.

Dib approached the front door, carrying the rucksack containing the alien's things and plugged the key into a lock, and then used another key for a second lock. He had added more security measures recently it seemed, most likely to please the newest addition to their family; however, to Zim's sleepless paranoia, these locks simply weren't good enough.

Zim glanced upwards, felt an edge of blanket slip off his head as Clara tried to keep him covered, and noticed that there were no security cameras under the eaves either. And the front door was made of wood. Though he made a mental note to later assess the house's defences, the backdoor was probably of the same weak material. One solid kick from a burglar was all it took to break those locks. And the windows probably had no locks on them at all. What about motion sensor turrets? A panic room? He needed barricades! Reinforced walls! Bulkhead stockades!

"Here we are, Zim!" Clara said delightfully.

 _Your new prison._ He mentally added for her.

Dib turned the final key in the lock, and opened the door.

* * *

 **Dib07:** Hello and thanks for reading this chapter! I hope you enjoyed it! This one was a toughie. Zim's not an easy character to write in these situations, and I've been ping-ponging between scenarios to try and get a feel for how he'd react despite all his fundamental changes. Who votes that this is going to go well for him? XD

If you liked it, I'd love to know what you think! Your feedback is always welcome! Well, that's all from me for now! See you next time!


	43. Appreciation Page of DOOM!

**Welcome, to the 'Saving Zim' appreciation page!**

First of all the replies I could not formally reply to via a PM:

 **Guest**

Oh my goodness I finally reached the end. I am new to this story and have been spending the last couple weeks reading trying to catch up, I haven't reviewed yet because I don't like dragging people back to where I am. But anyways, I love this story. You have an incredible way of making me see from a different perspective. I can feel different tension. And I understand each perspective. You have done a great job. I can not wait for the next chapter to come out so I can read along with everyone else. Can't wait to see what you'll do next, best of wishes.

Dib07: You are a godsend. I LOVE hearing your opinions, it doesn't matter how far down you are in the chapters, just hearing your voice is all that matters! I have so much more to share with you and I am incredibly pleased and honoured to hear your thoughts! Each and every review matters, because it incites my passion to keep updating (ah I am such a nervous updater it is terrible I know! Banish me!) It has been quite a journey, and it warms my heart to know how dedicated you were to read this story to its current chapter! Now that's no small feat! Your words mean the world to me.

 **Guest**

Ok so I'm the guest who commented on chapter 3 or 6 today? And OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU SO MUCH YOUR WRITING IS SPECTACULAR. Man I was just going to take this story nice and slow but I ended up binging on it the entire day! Holy smokes the way you write is so well done and the characterization is amazing. Now I have to go do hw D: but dknskejneos I can't stop thinking about your writing and story haha!

Dib07: Again its feedback like this that keeps me sane! XD Seriously, it's so uplifting, knowing how loved and cherished this crazy story is! Gosh, I can only hope my writing continues to give you that awesome pleasure! I'm on such a high right now! Trust me, the next lump of Saving Zim is gonna be even better. And no I am not sugarcoating it. I hope you love the fudge out of it!

 **Guest**

Omg ok so I saw this story mentioned somewhere on the Amino app and OH MY GOD I LOVE THE WAY YOU WRITE DKANKAIFJSOA. It's going to take me awhile to catch up with the others but jsbsknajsknsnsks I love your story so much!

Dib07: What, really? It's been mentioned in the Amino app WOT? Oh goodness gracious I hope it's all good things! Thank you for telling me so, oooh so excited and happy! Awww! I hope you can catch up soon, you have GOT to see what else is in store! I can't wait to show you!

* * *

 **To you, my dearest readers:**

I have not stopped celebrating the fact that I've had so many supporters and reviewers dedicated to seeing this story through. I couldn't even imagine that this story would get the attention it did. You have all shared the heartache, love and compassion for this story and I never thought it would conclude on such a high note.

On a BIG plus note, with the blessings and suggestions of a friend (lol Rissy), for those of you who do NOT want the story to end here, you're in luck. Because this isn't the end. For those of you who would like to see Zim's new life to its fullest, I'm thinking of continuing with the next part of the series: **Saving Zim: Epilogue.** It's a continuation, but it's also a new start for our favourite little home invader. It's the same story, but with a new plot? If that makes any sense? XD Honestly the full scope of the story is massive and yes I'm a real nervous wreck when it comes to that notorious CHAPTER QUANTITY! So I kinda hoped it would be a good place to start anew? It'll be dark, it'll be awfully horrible, and well, lovely too. Yeah. Really lovely.

And there's also some Gary. Who's up for that? I know I am!

* * *

I wish to extend my deepest appreciations to the people who have sent me gorgeous fanart of SZ, and told me how much they've enjoyed this story. Each piece of artwork is a staggering reminder of how much this story is loved and cherished. My passion to continue this adventure with you all has grown from this in leaps and bounds.

(In no particular order) I heartfully show my warmest thanks to:

 **BirdNerd03**

 **Weevmo/Mechabite**

 **Haleyriler**

 **RissyNicole**

 **Alicartin**

 **Skeleion**

 **Piratemonkies64/Slothfantasy**

 **Amlz06**

 **Timmicita**

 **and Moops!**

My love and appreciation also extends to **Piratemonkies64** , who has beautifully turned **10** chapters into audio chapters. Please, check them out on tumblr and follow the works of **Slothfantasy!**

These reviews have been so MASSIVELY important to me on a MASSIVE EPIC SCALE OF EPICNESS. I can't thank you all enough. It's been a wonderful and unforgettable experience for me, one that I shall cherish, and always will. This story was my first real story into the IZ fandom after so many years of absence. Thank you for making me feel so welcome! :)

I have carefully gone through the reviews, and carefully selected each name to thank you again. I think that's everyone. Let me know if I've accidently misplaced you!

It's been a wonderful journey, experiencing this story with you. It's been very emotional, more so than I was expecting, going through all the names and reviews. And I want to send a heartfelt thanks to those who supported me from the very first chapter. If it wasn't for you guys, this story may not have launched at all, so give yourselves a pat on the back!

I noticed that I lost a lot of readers along the way, but I guess that's only inevitable given the story's length, and the long time span, but this story picked up a lot of new ones too! :)

 **Guest**

 **ShayL92**

 **that-quirky0kid**

 **Sin Hogar**

 **JayBorb**

 **cara9001**

 **Piratemonkies64**

 **Invader Johnny**

 **oliviikate**

 **Demonic Irken**

 **StarrImagine**

 **G.S**

 **Rocky Rooster**

 **prettilitTLepoison**

 **AllisonSilver2001**

 **ScriptNinja**

 **ElaEnchanted21**

 **Moops**

 **Mechabite**

 **TheCandyCravingDemon**

 **Mutilated Gem**

 **jewelgrrl21**

 **10294802047584**

 **anonymous**

 **Obey The PIGGY**

 **Golden Chains**

 **JustBeStill**

 **vash1589**

 **HaleyRiler**

 **ImTired**

 **No Guns Only Roses**

 **WendigoBro**

 **Orion**

 **SaintHeartwing**

 **KydenFox**

 **8yahomework**

 **TheisticSantaist**

 **RhiannonsaurusRex**

 **Lizgir12**

 **GeekySkeleton**

 **BirdNerd03**

 **19871992**

 **Azuranaito**

 **Wingdings13**

 **Negs**

 **icetheirkenfemale**

 **Carol Rosy**

 **Anon**

 **Laurie**

 **Aelliey**

 **Alexa**

 **wordsandpixels**

 **yikes**

 **ermahgerd**

 **RissyNicole**

 **Timmicita**

 **Leloca**

 **Aecoris**

 **BirdAntlers**

 **Alice Forshadow**

 **oh. no**

 **BlueHeart01**

 **Nonrealistic Barrier**

 **Phoebe**

 **Ashjd55**

 **Frigid Dawn**

 **Gustauve-Drakenhime**

 **Purest of the Hearts**

 **queenstiel**

 **izfan26**

 **guestrev**

 **VegaLume-San**

 **Deizey-Raine Staer**

 **I noticed that**

 **CawAreYouDoin**

 **InvaderRAM**

 **cheesylady583**

 **Oof**

 **MadnessJones**

 **Love-begits-love**

 **InvaderVel**

 **Naga**

 **Binaural Beats**

 **the-siRNA**

 **Leo**

 **meiloorun-notthe-fruit**

 **strawberry frosting**

 **Closet Lethargy**

 **DappleJackalope**

 **ZimGir4life**

 **Parcel Mistress**

 **Ciara P**

 **Michelle P**

 **iamauselesstrash**

 **Wu the Stoic**

 **CephalonGhost**

 **Turbuggy**

It's been a pleasure, sharing and enjoying this story with so many dear readers and fans of the show. It's been an exciting and rewarding experience for me.

This story was a kind of extended time spent on FFN I was not expecting when I was planning on retiring from the website... then Saving Zim kinda exploded in content and it kept on going! XD

And this concludes Part One of Saving Zim more or less! XD Please let me know if you're interested in seeing more! I'd love to keep it going. It's the least I can do for you guys and gals. Ah fuck it. Imma gonna go and ruin the surprise by adding the latest part in the series, so ah yeah! Check it out if you'd like, and I'll be there to glomp you in hugs, m'kay?


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